


Not Over Yet

by dialectus



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Childhood Friends, Codependency, Drama, Eremika - Freeform, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Humor, Mental Illness, Moral Lessons, POV Third Person, Real Life, Romance, Slow Burn, Smut, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:28:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 35
Words: 261,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23857621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dialectus/pseuds/dialectus
Summary: Two torn ex-lovers grow to rekindle old flames once their paths recross, after nearly six years of learning how to live without each other.
Relationships: Mikasa Ackerman & Eren Yeager, Mikasa Ackerman/Eren Yeager, Mikasa Ackerman/Jean Kirstein
Comments: 507
Kudos: 1386





	1. Part I: We Aren't Just Dreaming Anymore

Part I: Prelude

The candlelight flickers for a long time, casting shadows that shiver with every silent flick of the flame.

It's cold outside. The wind stirs, howling reminders of what once was, what now should be. Eren holds his hand up to his face, surveying the crescent line that stretches across the palm, calloused by years of molding lumps of clay into shapes and etching figurines on leveled surfaces. He closes his eyes, remembering, trying hard to forget. But it's useless, for his scars bear the permanent markings of a lifetime, and at twenty-five, he's lived long enough to be covered in them. From palm, to chest, to thigh, to ankle: covered.

Once, there was a time when his skin was taut and unmarred by the symptoms of a harsh life, a time when his hair wasn't so long and his cheeks so stubbly and his mother was alive and the dents between his fingers were made solely to be occupied by those of the girl he was made to come together with. And now all of that, gone. In one breath, life billows and heaves to leave behind only fragments of what once stood so rooted and proud. By the anvil of time, even mountains can be made into ashes, it seems. Even men.

Growing older has often left him wondering when it was that it all went wrong. Was it when he first lost her? His innocence? What? He's been sad for so long that it's become his new normal, a syndrome of adulthood, a comfortable state. His eyes, an impossible mix of green and gold and blue, are still vibrant and rich but a hazy film covers the incandescent shine they once reflected. That’s what happens to childish eyes once they've seen too much, they become heavy with experience. Soiled with it. Dull.

The boyish laughter that once filled him echoes through his past, fading into the stagnant drone that is the present moment, reminding him that once, not too long ago, things weren't always this way. They were once okay. Livable. But loss has a way of eroding things, of changing everything.

Dancing shadows grow to consume the walls around him, swathing the room in darkness when, with a sigh, wet fingers pinch the candlewick. He extinguishes the flame.

Just like that.

That's exactly how she left him.

**—o—**

Her red scarf flutters in the wind. Mikasa fixes it closer around her neck, grunting. It's cold outside. Too cold. She peers down the street, gloved hand waving up to hail, "Taxi!" when a cab pulls in just a few feet away. She goes to make a run for it, but a blond man with steely eyes is quick to claim it, pulling on the door handle and shooting her a brief look of indifference before stuffing himself inside.

"Asshole," she breathes.

God, it's cold out here. Too damn cold!

"Taxi!" she calls again, shivering. Her teeth clatter. She curses some more. A few chilled, despairing moments later, and she’s finally stealing her way into a cab.

"Where to, Miss?" the driver asks, eyeing her through the rear view mirror. His eyes are hooded, almost leering. It occurs to her that she's to entrust her safety to this man, this utter stranger. Who's to say anything keeps him from acting upon perverse impulses and driving off the side of the road with her inside? Funny how some things work this way, how silent agreements are exchanged between strangers. Pay them, and a person with hopes and skills and purposes beyond driving a taxi cab becomes mere services that carry you from one place to the next, a tool to use in exchange for money. People using people. It’s how it all works.

"Ma'am?"

Her gaze darts back to focus. Through the mirror, she sees him stare.

"Where to?"

 _As far away from here as possible_ , she thinks to say. Although it hits her—Why? Why would she want to say that?

She smiles. Pronounces the address.

The driver gives a single nod, and soon enough, his foot is pushing down the gas pedal, hands turn the steering wheel, and Mikasa is that much farther away from home.

She stares at the moving world outside, blurry city lights sliding past her eyes, illuminating her face through the glass of the window. Absently, her hand finds the scarf coiled around her neck, fingers pinching the fabric, feeling it, caressing it. Remembering.

It's so tempting to delve deeper into her thoughts, to dig until they utterly consume her. But Mikasa is strong, much stronger than that. There's no time for fantasies, that time has long since passed. She's not a child anymore. She's a woman now. A full-grown woman.

The shimmering engagement ring on her left hand and the hard, wet kiss her fiancé plants on her cheek when he greets her is enough to remind her of that.

**—o—**

Move. He has to move.

Perhaps it's the chill in his apartment or the lull of sitting still for long but Eren's muscles ache. Get up, they say. Up. Walk. Move. Get the hell out of here.

He stands, stops by the window, looks out.

His eyes deceive him, for they claim to see her, but he knows it's not really true. Her dark hair up in a ponytail, swaying with every gentle glide of her legs, glowing with recognition. But then the small head turns to reveal a face so foreign it's disgusting. And Eren—always—is disappointed to learn the truth. It's never her. His eyes haven't caught the real sight of her in years.

In five. In five whole years, actually.

All that time has passed since he last saw her, held her, ran his fingers through her hair. Kissed her, heard her sigh his name. Heard her gasp it. And with the gradual descending of their chests, and the soft releases of her breath, he belonged to her as much as his own name belonged to him. He was hers, hers entirely. And that's the problem with belonging to people, you see. You don't know how to belong to yourself. He’s ambled through the past five years utterly disconnected from his body. 

It's not that Eren feels alive, but he keeps on existing.

Odd, what's become of him. He isn't a child anymore, for the stubble on his cheeks and his long, unruly hair are enough to remind him of that. He's an adult now. A full-grown adult.

A fuck up. A big fucking fuck up. Exactly what Dad always said he’d be.

Another glance outside. The wind is so strong it practically rattles the windows, but his bones creak from the cold and his muscles scream for motion. He has to do something. He has to move.

So, soon enough, a coat is lading his shoulders, apartment keys have been shoved into the back pocket of his jeans, and the door is slamming shut behind him in his egress.

**—o—**

Mikasa's tired.

Tired of this dress. Tired of this party. Tired of these people. Tired.

Her fiancé's rambling on beside her, talking about some kind of sport she doesn't particularly care about with an arm looped around her waist, holding her close to him like his very own gilded life-sized trophy. And he shows her off. He loves to show off his trophies.

So she nods and smiles, offering polite little gestures of attention and appreciation to the guests, even though her mind has long become numb to the bureaucratic routine. Talk, talk, talk. Impress, impress, impress. Money, money, money. That's all these people care about.

Her eyes land on the outside world through a tall window, muffled voices around her dwindling to a low hum. Outside, the tree branches sway, moving to the sibilant winter air. She shudders, and she longs. Even though it's cold and windy, how nice wouldn't it be to be outside right now? She feels like she could belong out there—more than she belongs in here, anyway.

She's fixing a hair behind her ear when her fiancé notices her being distracted, so he plants another wet kiss on her cheek to capture her attention.

Mikasa jumps, slightly flustered.

"What's wrong?" he asks her, a big grin on his face. It's like his facial expressions never match the words that come out of his mouth. Devoid of any signs of concern or worry, he says, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she manages a smile.

He gives her a sideways look. "You sure?"

"Yes."

"Are you thirsty?"

"No."

"Can I get you anything?"

"Jean," Mikasa sighs, untangling his arm from around her waist. "I'll be right back, okay? I have to go to the ladies room."

He flashes her a smile, says alright, and Mikasa is making her way through the mingling crowd of foreign people before he, or anyone else, can say anything more to her. She feels a suffocating need to flee. No more people, no more words. No more pretending.

She reaches for her jacket, fixes her scarf around her neck, loops her tiny purse over her shoulder, and escapes through the back door, sparing a quick glance behind her. She doesn't think anybody saw her leave. And it's not like any of them really care about her leaving. It's not like any of them can pronounce her name correctly—or even remember it, at that.

_"Wait, what's your name?"_

_"Mikasa."_

They always laugh. Like her name is some kind of joke or something.

_"Wait, how do you spell that again?"_

_"M-I-K-A-S-A. Mikasa."_

_"Oh, my God!"_ they cackle. _"That's so wonderful!"_

Jesus. Everything is wonderful. Like the fact that she's half Japanese, and the fact she's named after a battleship, and the fact that everybody swears she's pregnant for agreeing to marry Jean so soon.

She won't ever admit this to herself, but their comments sometimes hurt her. Sometimes.

As soon as she's outside, she spots one of the guests leaning back against a wall, sporting expensive trousers and a black coat. She halts. He takes a long pull from his cigarette. They stand in silence. All is still.

And for a second, she belongs.

Here. In the cold. Accompanied by a stranger she entrusts her safety to. Because he could act perversely if he wanted. He could hit on her, he could offer her a cigarette, heck, he could kidnap her if he wanted. Or worse, he could tell Jean. Tell him his woman’s gone loose, that she’s out there wobbling around in a giant city having her second (third?) active existential crisis this week. But he doesn't. And she stands, with company but isolated and all sorts of twisted up inside.

"You alright?" he asks suddenly, blowing smoke out of his lips.

Mikasa nods her head politely, assuring him she's fine.

"Congratulations," he tells her then, and she thanks him nobly, forcing another smile, another imperceptible bow of her head.

Yes, yes, yes, congratulations. She's going to be a wife soon. This is her engagement party. How exciting is that? How lucky is she?

But as she's making her way down the street, scarf moving gently in the wind, feet slowly treading one step after the other, Mikasa has to admit she isn't feeling very lucky at all.

**—o—**

Eren's shoulders rise against the chilly air. He keeps on walking, not bothering to take shelter from the cold. He just has to walk. Something inside him reverberates walk, walk, walk. Just walk, Eren. Walk.

So he does.

He treads on aimlessly, stuffing his hands into his pockets and exhaling heavily through his nose. There's music playing outside. Christmas music. His eyes briefly wander over the street, noticing the absence of snow on anything. A snowless Christmas is approaching. Those are the worst. They remind him of—

"Ow!"

"Hey!"

It all happens in an instant.

He's falling forward, catching something. A woman. She's falling too.

His arms are frantic, circling around her waist, stopping her from bouncing right off his chest where she'd rammed into him. One of his hands flies free, lands open-palm on a nearby wall, the weight of his body and hers and their clash pushing hard into his wrist and nearly twisting it. He hisses and, amazingly, stops them both from falling to the ground.

Eren's breathing heavily. They both are.

Then he's angry.

He pulls the woman back.

 _Watch where the hell you're going!_ The words are right there. Right there, hanging by the tip of his tongue. 

But suddenly, Eren can't speak or breathe or think because.

Because suddenly, he sees her.

Her.

She's staring up at him, wide-eyed, her irises deep pools of black ink he knows so well, so damn well. His voice falters. All of him does.

But the girl gasps then, clasping the collar of his coat feverishly and breathing a bewildered, "Eren?"

**—o—**

It's him.

Him!

This is a dream. It has to be a dream. It has to be. 

But no. No, no, no it isn't!

Eren smiles, his emerald eyes shimmering as his face brightens one sleepy feature at a time. 

"Mikasa?" is his astonished whisper. His hands grip her shoulders. "Oh my... holy..." Eren's voice is tight, strangled with excitement. "Holy... holy shit!"

Mikasa laughs. Eren's flabbergasted, chuckling a breath that’s dislodged from the depths of his chest. He lifts her up gently, carefully, pulling her to stand upright on her feet. She's so small in his arms, so light, so much lighter than he remembers her ever being. 

"It's you," he whispers, as if voicing it will make her that much realer. "It's you!"

"I'm—"

"I can't—"

"It's like—."

"Mikasa, I’m—"

The way she stands, poised, stiff, assures him. Eren isn't dreaming. She's real. The girl standing before him—Mikasa Ackerman—it's really her!

But Mikasa can't bring herself to realize what's happening at all. Something tells her this is all another dream of hers. She's gotten so used to dreams, to phantom memories of him, to the abrupt awakenings that always follow. She never wants to wake up when she has those, those perfect dreams of him. So she thinks, maybe if I just play along, I won't wake up this time. Let me play along, and the dream will never end.

But then Eren lets go of her, and Mikasa sees that she's still clinging to his coat.

Clinging.

To his coat.

She holds on to its lapels, the fabric between her fingers. Pinching it. Feeling it. 

Remembering.

Her features melt, eyes growing enormously wide, all the color draining out of her face until she's stone cold white. "E-E..." her voice cracks. "Wait. Eren!?"

His lips part in equal astonishment. He pants, running a hand through his messy hair, feeling extremely self-conscious. "Um." He glances down at her hands, still holding him in place. His voice is easy, gentle. "Yes. Yes, it's me. Eren."

"Eren?" she asks again, eyes growing even wider.

"Uh–" he laughs. "Mikasa," he's saying slowly, pressing his hands to his chest. "It's me! It's me, Mikasa. It's Eren!"

Her eyes are giant saucers, face frozen in pallid shock. He feels a laugh pass through his lips, rising to precise nuances he has not heard himself pronounce before. Has he ever laughed this way? Ever felt this way? Ever stood where he stands and looked at what he's looking at? Mikasa, the Mikasa of his dreams, the Mikasa of his past, Mikasa manifested as a maiden of red dresses and fancy updos and frost-kissed roseate cheeks.

"Oh," she heaves suddenly, holding a hand to the side of her face. She turns away from him, paces back and forth. He keeps his eyes on her, just her.

She's walking around in circles when he eyes what she's wearing. It's a crimson dress, tight around her torso. It falls just above her knees, and her coat is thick and woolen. Her hair is up in a neat little arrangement. She almost doesn't even seem like herself.

His eyes fall to the floor then, drawn by the solid _thck, thck, thck_ that follows each of her footsteps, and. Wait. Is she wearing heels?

Abruptly, Mikasa whips around to face him. Eren's neck literally jerks back at the startling sight of her. "Eren," she pronounces slowly, savoring every precious syllable. "What on Earth are you doing here?"

"Well, I live here," he says. "I've been living here for the past five years. New Years will mark my sixth."

Her voice is lost in a whisper. "Have you?

"Yes! Yeah, this is where I've been. What about you? What are _you_ doing here?"

"I just..." She pauses, feeling her heart pounding loudly in her chest. Alive. So vibrant and alive and happy. Inflated, she says, "I'm just out for a walk. You know, just, looking around? I'm new to the city, you see, and have only been here for, well, it doesn't really matter I guess. Point is, my fiancé found a good job downtown, and he used to live here so—"

Eren winces. "What?"

"What?"

"Fiancé?" he echoes, hating the way his voice sounds. So breathless. So... appalled.

"Um." Mikasa glances down at her hands. They're shaking. "Yes," she says, readjusting the strap of her purse on her shoulder. "Yeah, I'm getting married in a few weeks."

Eren opens his mouth. No words come out.

A few weeks?

Why? How? How could time be measured so precisely? How could something so important be compacted into the suffocating walls of _a few weeks_?

"That's…" Odd. Painful. Abnormally devastating and just… "Wonderful!"

"Really?"

No. "Yes!"

"Oh."

"Congratulations, Mikasa."

"Thank you," she smiles, gazing downward. "Everyone tells me so. They all think it's great that I'm settling down now. I'm very happy."

He narrows his eyes, nodding. But he can't help noticing that her words sound somewhat fabricated, like she's been repeating them the way an actor over-practices their lines and ends up sounding monotone at the delivery. He doesn't really believe her. And part of her suspects that, too.

"Yeah, it's wonderful, Mikasa. Really. I'm very happy for you."

And that's when Eren sees it. Her left hand reaches to touch the fabric wrapped around her neck and his eyes catch the startling presence of a large diamond hoisted around her long, thin finger. Jesus. Just looking at the damn thing hurts. It's so large, so bold. So unnecessary.

But then… He notices something else. And it's his scarf. His scarf, draped around her neck. Radiating, like a statement decoration. His scarf! On her neck! She's wearing it!

Eren smirks.

He can't help feeling, by the way it stands out so blissfully from the rest of her clothes, that it actually doesn't go with her outfit. Like it wasn’t planned. But it's there—even now, after all this time!

Eren's smirk broadens into a smile.

The scarf is like a mark, a declaration. His own flag stabbed into soil, erected proudly and claiming victory over the land, branding it as his. His before anyone else’s.

"I was just making my way to eat something," she tells him then, and part of her doesn't even know why she's admitting that. She may as well confess her entire situation. She may as well blurt out, _Hey, Eren. I know I haven't seen you in over five years and all but you should know that I'm engaged to this wonderful man whose friends are all asses who can't even remember my name. Actually, I'm fleeing my own engagement party as we speak! Isn't that wonderful?_

But she knows better. She knows better than to linger with him even a second longer. That's dangerous. That's wrong. She should say goodbye. She should walk away and run as far away from him as she can get. Because their past. Because they're too rich with rawness and memories.

But she can't.

She can't bring herself to do it, to part from him, from his brown hair and his stubbly face and his glowing eyes and that dimple on his cheek that always flashes when he smiles. She's fixed. Stuck. Like a nail drawn to a magnet.

"So was I," Eren murmurs, disrupting any further speech from her. "Do you want to come with? I know this great place just a few blocks away from here."

Mikasa parts her lips to object, wailing alarms going off in her head screeching _danger, danger, danger!_

"Um, no. I–"

"Oh, come on," he insists, swaying on his feet. "We haven't seen each other in so long! Come on, Mikasa. Please?"

She's quiet for a moment.

Tentatively, Mikasa glances over her shoulder, searching silently for a figure in the dark.

There's no one there behind her.

She sighs. Of course there isn't.

"Alright," she says, turning her head to look back at him, still convinced that she's caught within a dream, that whatever's happening has to be just a figment of her desperate imagination. But there's nothing fake about the way Eren's eyes light up, purely, like a child’s. He smiles at her. Beams.

And Mikasa smiles back. "I think I'd love that," she says, smoothing her hair behind her ears. "You could show me around while we're at it, too. I'm still new to this place, so I could use all the help I can get?"

Eren practically implodes with excitement. "Sure! Your fiancé hasn't shown you around?"

"No," she huffs, thinking of Jean, the party she's fleeing, the ridiculous irony of her life. "He's... a busy man."

"Ah," Eren nods, "I guess it's a good thing I get to do the honors, then."

Mikasa rolls her eyes at him, and Eren—he just laughs. He laughs. 

A few moments ago, he was a lost man. A wandering man. Now he's here. He's found. He has a place to go and a thing to do and a Mikasa to tend to.

She’s watching him. He drags a hand through his hair. It falls just over his shoulders, wisping out slightly at the ends. He looks so restless. Rugged and worn. Yet so new, so new. This is what the sun must feel when it meets the world again each morning. Like it's been there before, yet everything is different. Reintroduced.

Mikasa bites her lip.

Something inside of her screams _wake up, wake up, wake up!_

But she isn't dreaming anymore. This time, Eren is here for real. And he is nothing, absolutely nothing, like the man she's seen in her dreams for so long. Because people grow and change and become, and the markings of time's passing has touched them both.

Mikasa tightens her coat around her figure, diamond ring shimmering slightly in the light.

Eren feels for his wallet in his pocket. He feels his pulse in his ears, reverberating the image of her, the feel of her, existing right there in front of him. And his eyes haven't caught the true sight of her in years.

But now they do. But now they do.

That's when Mikasa offers him another one of her smiles, and Eren feels like the luckiest man in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for those of you who may already know me (or may not), i would like to reintroduce myself.
> 
> my name is nati and i go by the username dialectus (previously natiwati and sayanara). i began to write this story back in 2015, and at the time, i had no idea that the fic would reach the dedicated audience and become the size that it eventually did. last year, i decided to delete the story--mostly out of years of dissatisfaction with the fic, above anything. in doing this, however, i forgot about all of those that read this story to not only receive some pleasure out of it, but to cope with their daily lives. to this day, i am astonished at the confessions from so many of you that have proclaimed my story has gotten you through such difficult times in your own lives.
> 
> this is a fanfiction that belongs to the readers who have poured so much of their hearts into the characters, the scenarios, the chapters, the beginnings and the endings and all of the messiness and glory it entails. so, with that, i give you back your story. and i thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all of your support. thank you for the fanart, the playlists, the reviews, the anons, the dms, the translations into Spanish and Italian, for the company you've given me for over 6 years. i'm so humbled by you, and i thank you for your time, your patience with me, and for your dedication to this tale. 
> 
> i am happy you're giving this little bit of my heart another chance. i hope you enjoy every second of it. and, as always: 
> 
> enjoy!
> 
> much love,  
> nati


	2. Your Scent, Your Colors

Black.

Short, obsidian hair. Tresses that spill down like waterfalls. Eyes so black you swear they can suck you in whole, keep you prisoner within the cells of her abyss forever. Her hands, her hair, her chest, the little dimples decorating the small of her back… They were all so beautiful. So perfect. So entirely hers.

But they torment him. For years, that's all they've done. All these things stand as the grim reminders of all that Eren has lost; they remind him that everything was gone as soon as that door fell shut behind her when she left.

_As soon as the screeching of tires had been ignored._

_As soon as two vehicles collided... and a frail body had been propelled straight out and thrown onto the side of the road._

_And Eren had been too late._

_Eren had been too late to save him._

Eren died along with him.

Eren perished at the absence of her.

But then, as if someone has flipped on a switch, he is, just as suddenly, brought back to life. He finds himself holding on to every shaky sigh, every nervous laughter, clinging to every passing second as if it were his very last. Because once, there had been a promise, a vow: _"Always, Eren. I will always be with you."_

And the girl…

He sees her.

He sees her even though his eyes are closed.

**—o—**

_Green._

Eyes so green, the earth grew envious of them. Eyes that crinkled as he laughed, that flared with anger, that glinted blue-green when he cried, as if the ocean went to claim what the earth was too afraid to touch.

His eyes. She'd loved them. She'd loved _him_.

Times with him were like designated points that marked the timeline of her existence. Wherever Eren had been, wherever he'd touched, became a place that would glow and burn for as long as there was breath left in her, bearing witness to it all.

And that was him. That was Eren.

He was a flare, a fire, a wild frenzy of emotions that palpitated with every breath. He was music. A spectrum of bright colors and loud, discordant sounds that blended into soulful, quiet tunes. Songs that only she could hear, decipher.

But then the light had begun to fade once, and the colors no longer bled through. All music ceased, after The Accident, and the bright spectacle of green had slowly fogged into darkness. Beyond the stretching tint of blackness, her eyes could no longer catch the sight of anything at all. And she'd lost him. Mikasa thinks she had forgotten what it was like to be alive then...

Until, suddenly, someone turned on that light.

**—o—**

Ice particles crack beneath the soles of their shoes, leisured steps synchronizing with one another. All is silent, save for the hiss of the chilled breeze that tosses his hair, ruffles the skirt of Mikasa’s dress and nips at the bare expanses of her legs. And Eren unbecomes, cancels anything he has ever been to be nothing but this, what he is now, this very moment. Whereas once the arrow of time pointed him backwards to the past, now it pulls him forward, unraveling delicately piece by piece, step by step, second by second. And the girl remains beside him. Breathing. Radiant. Alive. Although he feels that at any moment she may vanish, like a wisp of smoke lost to the wind—she’s here. With him. For now, for now.

Mustering the courage to acknowledge the dazzling presence by his side, he finds her already staring. “Eren,” comes her voice, all lisp and breathless and familiar.

“Yeah?” 

“I was thinking,” her eyes fall to the ground, following their footsteps. “Um… perhaps it’s best if we…”

“If we what?”

“If we just… grab something to eat? Catch up for a bit? I should have mentioned, I have somewhere I need to be.”

“Oh.”

“I should’ve mentioned—”

“It’s alright.”

“I really—”

“No wories.”

“No—”

“It’s—”

“Wait—”

“Yes?”

“I’m just—”

“What?”

They halt. Mikasa scoffs, shakes her head, lifts a hand to her cheek. It blooms, pink with embarrassment.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and he smiles.

“No, I’m sorry. You talk. I interrupted.”

“I’m just…” she begins, standing still in all her grace, all her splendor. Eren stares at the tufts of her eyelashes, the tip of her nose, the corners of her mouth that curve up slightly. “I’m… I’m just really happy to see you.”

His smile grows. “Me too.”

It’s a few moments before they start walking again.

“Well… that’s fine,” Eren says after a short while, peering at her through the corners of his eyes. “I was going to suggest that anyway since, you know, it’s cold out and all you’re wearing is a dress.”

Mikasa sighs. “It’s a long story.”

“I bet.”

And they’ve got time. Enough time to walk and to wallow. Enough time to peek at one another and then look away. Enough time for Eren to dash suddenly to a door by Mikasa’s right and hold it open, beaming, “We’re here!”

She balks. “Here?”

“Yep!”

“Here where?”

“Well, you wanted to grab a bite, didn’t ya?”

“I mean…”

“So, here we are!”

So there they are. And the place looks… small. Quaint. Somewhat foreign?

“Sasha’s café et boulangerie.” Yep. “It’s French.” Ah.

He beckons for her to go inside.

Mikasa raises a brow at him. "Did you just pick this place out on a whim?"

"Yes," he grins, and his bright eyes crinkle slightly at the edges. "Well, no. Not exactly. My friend owns this place, so I might be a bit biased, but they serve the best food! This place is awesome."

Mikasa snorts gently into her fist, shaking her head.

"What?" he smiles, still holding the door open. 

"Nothing," she says, smoothing down her dress. "Nothing. Let's go inside."

Calmly, she makes her way past him, into the cafe, and that's when he catches her scent. It cements him in place, for he’s swarmed with a current of emotions. 

She smells nothing like the girl of his past, instead reminiscent of a leggy model he’d once hooked up with, and although her face has been blurred in his memory, he still remembers the Chanel No. 5 (or something like that?) that had seared his senses numb, a perfume meant to entice defying its purpose. And now this same scent is on Mikasa. It’s odd, inhaling her presence like this, having it be nothing like what he remembers, having it force him to face the fact that yes, Mikasa is different. Mikasa is here, and she’s thinner and her hair is longer and she wears heels now and Chanel No. 5 perfume and is engaged and very, very different.

Unaware, she stands in the queue leading to the front counter, staring up at the different options of food and beverages scribbled on the menu hanging by the wall, trying to make out what a _tarte tatin_ and a _tarte au chocolat_ are. And she’s so oblivious, so disconnected from the world. She stands as if amid an altar, unadulterated by her surroundings, and Eren watches her peruse the menu, ignoring the plethora of desserts inside a glassed display right in front of her.

He smirks. Oh, Mikasa. She really is just odd like that. It's pleasantly reassuring for him to know that at least that little bit of her hasn't changed at all. She’s always been one to make simple things so unnecessarily difficult. Decision paralysis, she calls it.

"What's a..." she peers behind her to speak to him as he makes his way to stand by her side, "tartee... tateen? "

Eren scoffs. "You mean, a _tarte tatin_? "

"Yeah. That's what I meant."

"Um..." He looks down at her hands. They're trembling. He glances at her shoulders. Shivering. She’s cold.

Eren closes his eyes. If this had been five, maybe six years ago, he would've wrapped himself around her and rubbed his hands over her arms, offering her his own heat to stop her body from quivering. An old, primal need for him to do so stirs within him, but he, of course, ignores it.

"It's a type of upside-down apple tart," he answers finally, crinkling his nose. "You won't like it."

"And a tarte au ... Ugh. That." She points at the scribble on the menu.

Eren leans in a little closer to her, following the line of her finger. "Ah, _tarte au chocolat_?"

She nods, slightly shaken by his close proximity.

"Chocolate tart," he says. "Like a chocolate pie. Dark chocolate."

At that, her mouth falls open, eyes popping into wide circles.

He simpers, "Oh, you'd love that."

"Yes," she muses, her eyes glowing childishly. "Yes, that's what I want."

"Alright." Eren digs his hand into his pocket to pull out his wallet. "If you want, you could go find us a place to sit."

"What?"

"A place to sit. Go find one."

"Why?"

He stares at her for a moment, blinking. "What do you mean why?"

"Uh—" She nearly slaps herself over the head. Stupid, stupid, stupid. "I just—" she shakes her head, mumbles, "Never mind."

"I mean, unless you wanna try your luck ordering in French?" he smirks again, the curvature of his lips complementing the arch of his brow, mocking, "From what I just heard, it sounds like you could use all the practice you can get."

"Oh, shut up," she retorts, punching him lightly on the shoulder, which makes him wince, laugh. "I'll go find us seats, then. So you can take your sweet time ordering in _French_."

As she walks away, Eren rubs his shoulder imperceptibly. God, that girl is still strong. But he smiles stupidly to himself. He can't help it. The corners of his lips stretch in silent bliss, and he doesn't dare fight the warmth that washes over him. He feels flattered. Perhaps even a bit lucky, too.

That's the first time she touches him.

He relishes at the contact, engraving it into his mind, as if keeping mental notes of their time together will make the situation that much more of a reality somehow:

_The first time in nearly six years that Mikasa touches me: A punch on the arm after I practically insulted her intelligence._

Nice.

**—o—**

Something citrus with a hint of ginger and nutmeg. And then the natural fragrance of his woody scent… Lord. Eren smells exactly the same as before. Exactly the same! How is that even possible? After all this time? He still smells of youth, of Old Spice deodorant and just... _boy_. Nothing like the scent of men's poignant cologne her nose has been violated into numbly accepting by now.

She inhales deeply through her nose, and even the wafting aroma of coffee and pastries permeating the cafe fail to ward off that persistent smell of his from her senses.

She feels... sensitive.

Soft.

Mikasa picks out the most isolated table and decides that that's the one. She sheds the coat and purse from her shoulders, placing them over the back of one of the chairs before sitting down, but not before feeling utterly uncomfortable at the way seemingly every pair of eyes turns to land on her. People gawk unbiddenly, probably wondering what the hell is wrong with her, wearing such a short dress in the middle of winter.

I'm fleeing my own engagement party, she wants to sing out to all of them, let them in on the funny joke that is her life. But she doesn't say anything. Just lets out a tiny huff of exasperation before taking her seat.

She doesn't like the view from where she sits, though, facing the wall, and she can still feel some stares chipping away at her back, so she stands up and switches to the booth across from her, leaving the chair for Eren to take without bothering to retrieve any of her stuff.

She crosses her legs, balancing a heel from the tips of her toes and bouncing her foot up and down, back and forth. From this angle, she can glare at anyone who stares. And also…

And also, she can see Eren. She can see him so well.

He's talking to the barista girl and Mikasa can't hear a thing he says. Sitting in the café, only a stone throw away from one another, she suddenly feels deprived of him, like they are once again worlds apart, drifters in the same room.

The barista giggles and smiles at his comments, and Mikasa can't help but smile too. Her imagination conjures all sorts of words he might be uttering, trying to make out the muted movements of his lips as if they moved to a rhythm she could decipher. Eren says something else, and the girl starts bursting into giggles all over again, flipping her hair and curving her lips into a minx-like smile that has Mikasa practically choking back a gag. 

It is only moments until he is fast approaching. And she marvels at his appearance, at his long, unkempt hair that he’s tucked behind his ears, at the stubble on his face that masks the smoothness of his features, the length of his fingers that hold two steaming cups and stretch out below a plate of… Oh, my God.

Chocolate.

She eyes the chocolate tart that is so dense, so dark, it’s practically the same color as her hair. She’s nearly drooling by the time Eren’s reached her, but then her eyes divert to admire the way his hands hold the dessert, how the veins protrude near his knuckles beneath a taut blanket of tanned skin. And she remembers how they’d felt, so small and fragile in their childhood, only to roughen and callous through the years. And she wonders now how they must feel, after all these years, if time has made them softer, gentler, friendlier. Because once, they served as weapons, as fists that broke skin and bones and fought hard against the cruelness of the world.

"You alright?" He asks her, setting down the drinks and plate on the table.

"Yeah, why?"

"You're blushing."

Mikasa almost falls out of her seat.

"What?" She chokes, a wave of heat washing down her body. "No, I'm not. I'm just... I'm just cold, that's all."

"Oh." Eren nods his head slowly and says nothing more on the matter, only hands her a fork before pushing the plate to her end of the table.

"So," he says, taking the seat across from her with all of her things, "it's good to know you still like chocolate. At least that much hasn't changed."

She nods, uncoiling the scarf around her neck. And he watches the way that damned diamond ring shimmers as she brings her hands to clutch the fabric. It's such a damn contradiction, that something so brash can come that close to something as delicate as his own gift to her. His own scarf.

Eren knows he should tear his eyes away from her then. But he doesn't. He's practically holding his breath, eyeing the newly exposed skin of her neck. Without the scarf, he can really see what she's wearing. The dress is short-sleeved and a deep red color that bounces off the paleness of her skin like a traffic light in the night. A thin layer of lacy designs decorate the fabric, an afterthought, perhaps, to make the rather simple dress appear more elaborate.

His eyes scurry further down. It's not too low-cut, but the dress fits a bit too tight around her bosom, which pushes her breasts back against her chest and huddles them close together, a small slit poking out from a place the dress can't reach to cover.

Suddenly, he's forgotten where he is.

He feels a solid pang. Pain. It slams into his chest with rapid force as he remembers… Her chest… The one that caged in her fervent heartbeat, the one he felt so well the night she left… 

_When he'd laid himself on top of her, dog-tired, and her heart had slammed against his ear like a drum._

_And she was alive. And he was alive._

_Because he was hers, and she was his, and her skin was only his to claim when he'd fogged it with his breath, and his lips had collected tiny beads of her sweat as they grazed the surface. And he'd kissed it. And she'd moaned._

_His name._

_She'd gasped it. Again and again like some sort of desperate litany as he moved. And Eren had felt her tremble underneath him as his mouth marked her neck, and his hands filled with her breasts, and she'd poured his name out her lips like it took all the strength within her, even though neither of them had any left._

And that was it. The last thing he'd ever heard her say to him. His sorry, broken name.

Mikasa isn't really looking at him, rather occupied with folding the scarf neatly and placing it above her lap, but he clenches his jaw and rips his eyes away from her, staring at some insignificant point in space, feeling his abdomen flush like shit down a toilet.

She's not his anymore. She's not. The obsidian hair, the abyssal eyes, the currant with raspberries smell of her skin and the little dimples on her back and her hands and chest. All her scents, all her colors, they all belong to someone else now. They're for someone else to claim, to kiss. To mark with his own lips and elicit his name from her. 

Mikasa peers at him, stricken by what she finds. He isn't looking at her and he seems mad. His brows furrow in displeasure and the corner or his jaw does that little thing it always does when he clenches it. She feels her face burn even more, convinced somehow that it's because of something she's done. Had he been offended by her blushing somehow? What's wrong with him?

Tentatively, she begins eating her food, chews decadently on a piece of the dessert, and her taste buds practically scream at the chocolaty explosion.

"Do you like it?" Eren asks her, and Mikasa nearly jumps, not expecting the sound of his voice to disrupt the silence so suddenly.

He sees her shrug rather apathetically though, her eyes trained coolly on the table and face fixed into a blank slate, scrubbed clean of all emotion.

"Mikasa," he says.

Her eyes slowly rise to meet him.

“You do still like chocolate, right?” It’s so dumb, but yet so terribly important.

And she blinks slowly, droning, “No. I’ve developed a terrible intolerance to cacao. I want you to know, Eren, that I will die now, all because you fed me something that I am terribly allergic to. You cannot fathom the damage you have caused.”

He opens his mouth to speak, to say something, but he's not even sure what to say to her.

That's when he sees her pinch her bottom lip between her teeth, her face slowly turning into a strained display of suppression until suddenly… Mikasa breaks into a bout of laughter.

"Just kidding," she says through her giggles. "Why would I ask for a chocolate pie if I didn't like chocolate? Really, Eren?"

He sighs. "What is wrong with you?"

"What?"

"That's not funny."

She shrugs, wiping the corner of her mouth with the edge of her wrist and smiling. "I think it is."

"Well, it's not."

"It is for me."

Eren shakes his head. "God, you're still a weirdo."

She holds up her fork, licking the leftover chocolate residue from the back lewdly before dipping it into her mouth.

He grimaces.

She laughs again, her shoulders trembling.

"I get it." Eren tries to fight the smile that threatens to seize his lips, but the sound of her laughter and the way her bare shoulders shake with every snort make it hard for him to succeed. "You like chocolate. No need to be so gross."

"Sorry," she says, suddenly bashful. "But maybe you shouldn't ask such stupid questions."

"Or perhaps you should invest in a better sense of humor."

She kicks his leg from beneath the table.

"Ow!" he groans. "What the hell?"

"That's the second time you pick on me tonight. And it's hardly been twenty minutes since we ran into each other."

Eren's leg throbs where she kicked him (and to think she did it with her bare foot).

"I can't help it," he says, bringing his drink to his lips. "I'm too used to teasing you."

"Well, then stop," she retorts, slicing the edge of the fork into her dessert. "Unless you want to end up without any limbs by the end of the night. You know"—she waves the fork around in the air between them as if it were a tiny sword—"my specialty is slicing flesh."

"Oh?" Eren's lips curve into a smile against the rim of the cup. "Is that so? You've always been all talk and no show, Ackerman."

"Watch it, Jaeger," she menaces.

Eren can't contain his chuckle. "Sorry, sorry. I'll stop."

"Good."

He takes a sip of his drink. Swallows. Whispers, "Maybe".

Mikasa gives him another look.

He smiles again, then dips his head back slightly and swigs another long sip of his drink.

Her eyes linger on his features then, lost in gentle reverie.

She closes her eyes and sighs, shoving another dark piece of chocolate pie into her mouth.

"What's wrong?" Eren asks her, and Mikasa's eyes snap open, not expecting the question.

"What?" She shrugs. "Nothing's wrong, Eren."

"You look stiff."

"I'm just uncomfortable."

"Why?"

She swallows, then points the fork to a man blatantly gawking at her from two tables away. "That's why. People keep looking at me."

"Well, because you look beautiful."

"No," she sighs, and Eren swears he sees her cheeks turn a bit pink, but her voice is toneless when she continues, "It's because I look like an idiot."

"That's not true."

"It is."

"Why do you say that?"

She leans in closer and whispers, as if she were telling him a secret, "I'm wearing a dress in the middle of winter."

"But there's a reason for that, yes?"

"Yes."

"Then let them stare as much as they want," he dismisses, taking another swig of his drink.

For a moment, Mikasa thinks he'll ask why she is even wearing a dress. But he never does. In fact, now that she thinks about it, he hasn't even acknowledged the existence of her fiancé at all, or commented about the ring on her finger, which sort of surprises her. He's always been the overtly curious type, but he's ignoring these things. And why? Are they not important? Would acknowledgement somehow steal them from this place?

She stares down at his hands which are clasped around the cup, eyeing the veins on the back of his hands again, getting lost in all their different curves and destinations.

Maybe… Maybe it really would steal her away from that place. Because her fiancé is probably looking for her by now. Oh, God. What if the whole party is looking for her? She'd left her phone with Jean, even though she'd brought her purse. He has to be looking for her. She's been gone for some time now. They all have to be wondering where—

Eren swallows his drink down bitterly, grimacing before coughing into his fist.

"You shouldn't drink so fast," she tells him calmly, despite the mild torrent of panic inside her. "You'll burn your throat."

Eren rolls his eyes at her. "Please," he says, but doesn't offer anything else. 

Mikasa realizes she still hasn't touched her drink, so she brings the still-steaming cup to her lips and blows on it for a few seconds before taking a small sip, tasting it. The drink is warm and smooth on her tongue. She gazes at Eren, eyes peeking up over the rim of the cup.

He's staring at her again. But not just staring at her—he seems lost in thought.

Something in her stomach tightens at the way his eyes bore into her, so sincere, so merciless, and she swallows her drink down slowly, careful not to choke.

She can feel her face and neck heating up, but Eren doesn't look away, so Mikasa lets out a sigh, trying not to stutter as she speaks. 

"What is it?"

"Nothing," he answers flatly, not even blinking.

"Then… why are you looking at me like that?"

Eren's eyebrows raise up slowly, but his features remain carved from solid stone. Eventually though, he smiles, running a hand through his bistre hair and letting out a sigh.

"It's just—" He shakes his head. "It's just that you've changed so much. But then again, you haven't. I'm just trying to make sense of you. I can't even recognize you, but at the same time, I do. I totally do. I just..."

Mikasa's hands tighten around her cup. She clenches her jaw, but can't will herself to stop him from belaboring further. Part of her wants him to continue. Part of her wants him to say all the things she's not brave enough to voice herself.

"I guess I just can't believe I found you tonight. That's all." His lashes flutter as he blinks off into space. His eyes—for once—cannot bring themselves to look at her directly.

Mikasa slowly drops her gaze to her own hands, staring at the cream-colored liquid in the cup within her grasp. Her ring shimmers slightly in the light.

She closes her eyes, deciding not to look at it.

"I know," she says, her eyes still shut. "It's been... such a long time."

"It has," he agrees quietly, and the air grows denser between them, but not uncomfortable. "But I guess it's not our fault we've changed, right?"

He finally forces his eyes to meet her, and she smiles softly after opening hers.

"Yeah," she nods, but the drink is quickly stealing her lips thereafter, and that's the end of that.

Mikasa never takes another bite of that chocolate tart.

And Eren doesn't insist on teaching her the right way to pronounce it.

**—o—**

It's colder now than from before they'd gone into the café.

Eren hears Mikasa curse under her breath.

"Whoa, there, potty-mouth," he says as they stand outside. "I didn't know pretty girls in heels said fudge so crudely."

"Fudge!" she curses even louder. Her teeth begin to chatter. "Sorry. It's just so f-fudging cold. "

"Do you know how to make your way back?" he asks her.

"Actually, I don't."

"Would you like me to help you?"

"Anything," she spits, practically jumping up and down for heat. "A-anything just p-please get me out of this damn c-cold."

"Alright," he says calmly. "Where is it that you're coming from?"

"The Plaza."

Eren raises his eyebrows, impressed. "Really?"

"Y-yes."

"You mean, _the_ The Plaza?"

"Yes, Eren!" She’s practically power-walking in circles. "P-please, just help me out. Tell me where to go and I will t-take a taxi there."

"No way," he says before peeling off his coat and draping it over her shoulders. "It's just around the corner. Come on. I'll take you."

Mikasa freezes into place, eyes wide in astonishment as he pulls the coat all snug around her, rubbing his hands over her arms and shoulders to offer her more heat.

She gazes at him, bewildered.

"It's warm, isn't it?" he smiles, his face merely inches away from hers.

Stunned, Mikasa cannot speak, so Eren pulls her by the sleeve of her own coat and prompts for her to start walking. She follows suit, utterly overtaken by the scent of him that radiates off his coat. Ginger. Nutmeg. Old Spice. Him.

After a long moment, she finally finds her voice. "Wait," she blurts. "Wait, Eren. I can't take your coat. It's too cold out here! You'll freeze–"

"Please," he groans, rolling his eyes, but she doesn't catch him doing it. "I can stand the cold awhile. You know that."

She opens her mouth to object, but no words come out of her, so he turns his head to look at her over his shoulder. She's gaping at the back of his pale cotton sweater, making out the slope of his spine and the muscles on his back from beneath the fabric, chewing on her lip as if she were keeping herself from saying something.

Eren smiles, stopping momentarily to allow her to catch up. Mikasa doesn't look at him.

"Hey," he whispers, tapping her arm with the back of his hand. "Your teeth stopped chattering. See? It's working."

Mikasa coughs, her breath puffing out as smoke.

"Now," Eren digs his hands into his pockets, "since I can't show you around the city tonight, I'll just point out every important place we see along the way and tell you a little something about them, okay?"

Mikasa stares at him for a quiet second. "Okay."

"Right. So..." He rubs his palms together, blowing hotly into his hands to heat them up, steam puffing into them. He raises a hand and points to a park across the street. "You see that place over there?"

She nods, following the line of his finger.

"That's Rose Park. It's an odd name for a park, I know, but people started calling it that since it has so many damn rose bushes. Nobody really calls it by its real name which, honestly, I can't even remember right now."

She laughs quietly at that.

"And that," he points to a building beside them, decorated from top to bottom with Christmas lights, "is an apartment complex. I dated a girl who lived there once."

Mikasa crinkles her nose.

Eren shakes his head, eyes wide and occult as if the memory of her came prowling back to haunt him. "God, she was crazy ."

"I thought you were only going to point out the important places," she deadpans.

Eren smiles brightly at her comment. "Oh, sorry. You're right."

Mikasa nods, hands clutching the thick fabric of his coat so that it doesn't fall off her shoulders.

"This area is mostly for rich people. You see that restaurant right there? They sell shark livers. Shark. Livers. I didn't even know you could eat that!"

Mikasa laughs again, shrugging her shoulders and shaking her head. "Apparently, you can."

"And the place beside them is an expensive vegan restaurant. I wonder what genius thought it'd be smart to set up a vegan joint right next to a place that sells shark intestines but hey, I guess irony is gold, right?"

Mikasa's lips stretch into a smile that lingers as they walk. His hands fly out of his pockets occasionally for him to point, then scurry back inside for shelter from the cold.

"The diner I was originally gonna take you to is right down this street, but I'm afraid we won't be walking past it." He shrugs. "Oh, well. Another day, right? Oh! Hey, we turn here."

They turn at a street corner, and Eren keeps on talking about a shop that opened just about a week ago, about a store that had been abandoned and everyone swears is being haunted by the deceased owner's ghost, about this great doughnut place that was founded by the same guy that directed some episodes of _It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia_.

She smiles. No matter what he says—even if she doesn't really hear him—Mikasa can't help but smile at his words. At his presence. At his being. At just…

There it is. That ardent, fervid spirit of his she's gone so long without. The Eren she always remembered, the one she knew so well. The green eyes, the color of life, the frenzy, the storm. He's that burst of wildfire again, and Mikasa realizes that she feels... suddenly... inexplicably… happy?

She feels so... _happy_ to be by his side, again, like she belongs. She can feel her chest swell up inside her, threatening to burst. His nose turns pink and his lips look a little blue, but Eren keeps on talking, not even considering asking for his coat back.

Mikasa wallows in the sound of his words. The low timbre of his voice—the gentle gruffness of it—and all the little gasps he emits after rambling on a little too long and ending up breathless. She feels something shake within her, as if her soul has begun to move, fighting to break free of her body and dance. She laughs at something he says, realizing that's the most she's laughed in ages. And she feels safe. 

She realizes then just how much she's yearned for him, in the same way wasted lungs will yearn for air. Being with him enlightens something essential within her, something ancient. 

Eren looks at her and smiles, laughing briefly at his own joke. It's as if someone, or something, flips a switch and turns on a light in her every time she hears him. Dark, empty spaces flicker and glow; a bright light floods the black planes that have gone unnoticed for so long inside her. How long has she gone without seeing that smile? How long has she gone without hearing that voice?

And what had happened, exactly, that made it all suddenly go away?

Something pricks within her chest then, like a scathing little blow to her heart. It's bittersweet, and Mikasa nearly crumbles into tears. This feeling... she cannot explain it. And perhaps she doesn't even want to.

Eren comes to a sudden stop, and she recognizes the place where they are standing. And just like that, it’s over.

"We're here," he says, sounding somewhat defeated.

Mikasa exhales deeply. She can't fight the hint of disappointment in her voice. "Already?"

"Yeah," he smiles weakly, burying his hands inside his pockets and shrugging up a single shoulder. "I'm afraid so."

She sheds his coat from her shoulders and extends her arm to him, offering it back. Eren thinks he can sense a mild reluctance in her motions, but it's probably all just in his head.

"Thank you, Eren," she says quietly. "For the coat. For tonight. For that delicious chocolate pie thingy."

He laughs, taking the coat from her hand. "No problem. I honestly didn't think you were allowed to eat chocolate anymore. What with your mandatory diets and all."

She gives him a tiny laugh, watching as he pushes his arms through the coat one thick sleeve at a time. "Actually, I'm not. But nobody has to know that."

"I won't tell," he whispers, winks. "Promise."

She gives him a little laugh, sighing heavily afterwards as if to say, _Yep. This is it, then. Time for me to go._ But they stand quietly for a moment after that, lingering, not really knowing what to do. The silence grows a bit awkward after a while, but neither of them are willing to interrupt it yet. Not yet.

Eren glances back at the hotel behind him, his brows raising slightly at the sight. He'd walked past the place about a million times before, but he'd never gone inside. Only affluent people ever really go there and he, certainly, is not that. Which only makes him wonder what the hell Mikasa’s doing in a place like this?

He glances down at the ring on her finger, then at the scarf around her neck, feeling light-headed and weak. Eren understands:

He has to let her go. He has to let her go again .

"Well," one of them speaks, and he realizes it's Mikasa. "I guess this is it.”

Eren takes a deep breath, trying to calm his sudden anxiety. "Yeah."

She opens her mouth to speak but ends up saying nothing. She can't bring herself to bid him farewell. So she reaches out her hand to him instead, nodding her head to prompt him to take it. Eren glances down at her fingers, eyeing the perfectly manicured nails, blinking at them for a moment before taking her hand in his own.

_Second time she touches me: When she’s leaving me._

_Again._

Mikasa stares down at their hands, watching them move up and down in unison. She pretends not to notice the large scar on his palm, which reminds her that the permanent scratch below her right eye is currently invisible, covered beneath a layer of makeup.

She pretends not to feel the heat of his palm melt the icy surface of her skin.

She pretends not to feel his fingers wrapped around her hand, denting the flesh, gripping firmly enough to mark.

She pretends not to notice any of these things. She pretends that none of them matter to her as much as they do.

"Take care, Mikasa," he tells her.

"You too, Eren," the girl breathes. 

Out of nowhere, he gives her hand a tight squeeze, and the pressure causes a surge of electricity to jolt up her spine, her knees nearly buckling. She closes her eyes, pretending not to feel it. Pretending not to be overwhelmed with the sudden realization that they'll likely never see each other again after this. They can’t.

Finally, she tears her hand away from his, remembering her fiancé, which she knows she loves so much and must be worried sick for her—if not furious as well. Without uttering another word, Mikasa makes her way past him and to the tall, fancy doors of the hotel, making him freeze when he catches that foreign scent on her again.

He stands in place as he wires his brain into a trained, careful numbness, deciding he can sit in the painful aftermath of seeing her once he's in the safety of his own home.

Eren turns slowly on his feet and brings himself to walk along the sidewalk. One foot reluctantly following the other, he snuffs out all of his beginnings, his wantings, what had begun to fertilize tonight, tearing it all violently from its womb.

**—o—**

Mikasa's hand is clasping the door handle, ready to pull.

She stops.

Her hand trembles, even as her grip goes tight. Her whole body's trembling—and she isn't cold. Not anymore. A sudden hotness shrouds her completely.

She stares at her hand. At the engagement ring on her finger.

Something bolts to life within her. A question. An answer.

Is this it?

She closes her eyes.

No.

No, it's not.

**—o—**

"Wait!"

She's shouting before she can even think to stop herself, calling for him as soon as she breaks away from the door. And she knows this is wrong. She shouldn't do this. She should go back. To her fiancé. To his friends. To her own damn engagement party.

He doesn't hear her, he just keeps on walking.

"Hey, wait!" she hollers, running, nearly tripping on her own feet. Damn these stinking heels to hell. "Eren!"

Finally, he stops, his shoulders raising in alarm before he whips around to see her, eyes stretched wide in surprise.

"I..." Mikasa stands before him, panting slightly as she tries to catch her breath. "Um... sorry. I just... uh, I was meaning to ask you..." Her heart is beating so hard she practically feels it pounding out of her chest when she says, "So how could I ever reach you again?"

Eren blinks.

His eyebrows raise in mild astonishment before knitting together into a frown. He opens his mouth, unsure of what to say, unsure whether he even heard her right, yet he still manages to sputter, "Well, I don't have a phone right now. But if you want, I could give you my address?"

"Perfect," she pants before she can control herself, searching frantically for a pen inside her purse. Her hands are shaking as she rummages through, and she hopes Eren doesn't notice. "Do you have anything to write on?"

He stares at her, frowning, as if he doesn't understand what she’s saying. Then suddenly, "Oh! Yeah." Promptly, he reaches into his pocket for his wallet, taking out a slightly crumpled receipt from inside one of the little folds. 

She gives him her pen, and he positions it over the paper, using his folded wallet behind it for support. She watches him silently, hearing her own pulse drumming in her ears, her body surging with adrenaline as he scribbles his address on the paper.

"There," he says, giving her the faded receipt. It doesn't even occur to her to give him her number because now she's suddenly afraid. 

She offers a small nod, turning around swiftly and throwing over her shoulder a breathless, "Goodbye, Eren. I'll see you soon!"

He stands frozen in place, astonished. He still holds her pen in his hand, and part of him wants to call out after her to return it. But his body is unresponsive under the shock of what just occurred, and Mikasa is already bolting her way through the grand doors of the hotel like they weigh absolutely nothing.

"Yeah," he says under his breath, clutching the pen in his hand. He knows she obviously won't hear him, but he still agrees with her aloud, breathing out a soft and hope-ridden, "Soon."

**—o—**

She hardly remembers walking through the front doors. She can't recall pressing down on the golden button to call for the elevator or making her way inside, standing as straight and poised as always, punching on her floor number without as much as a sliver of emotion present on her face.

But then the elevator doors slide shut.

And she gasps, realizing she hadn't been breathing.

Her legs turn to jelly, and she melts with her back against the wall, panting heavily as if she'd just ran a marathon. Because Eren. Eren. She’s just seen Eren!

She laughs. It's short, nervous and shaky, but she laughs. Her chest and legs tremble profusely. Her heart flutters like a little bird inside a cage.

"Eren..." she whispers aloud, not even aware of herself. The elevator dings with every new floor, its gradual ascend to her destination enclosing her into the tight, suffocating spaces of reality. But her heart and mind are floating out of her body. Mikasa is utterly beside herself.

She looks down at her trembling fists.

His fingers. She can still feel them wrapped around her, holding on to her hand.

Holding her.

He's not a dream. Dreams can't hold your hand. Dreams don't give you a crumpled receipt with their address on it.

She heaves, bringing the piece of paper to her face and boring her eyes through the scribbled words.

A smile. It dawns upon her lips.

The ink is black, staining over the paper. She can see the stain the pen made when he'd hovered the tip over it, a little hesitant and unsure.

A dot of obsidian.

Black.

But then, his handwriting follows, and she marvels at every dip and curve of the words, admiring even the hasty manner in which some jumble up together before they end, and she's reading the entire thing all over again.

Ding. Another floor.

Mikasa folds the paper gently, carefully, as if she's afraid it might rip. She tucks it safely inside her bra, where nobody will find it. The paper feels sharp and prickly on her skin, but she smiles faintly, not daring to remove it.

She sighs, aglow.

Her eyes close and remember him. His eyes. His face. His dimply smile.

But then the elevator gives one last ding, and the doors slide apart to open in front of her.

Mikasa opens her eyes, landing back into reality. In an instant, she's toneless again, all brightness and color draining out of her as she makes her way out, walking through the crowd of people to stash her coat and purse away.

The party lights are bright and luminescent, but her eyes catch none of it anymore.

Because—even though there's music and people and colors all around her—someone has turned off the lights.

**—o—**

Eren treks down the street. He looks down at his hand. He's still holding her pen. It's just a pen. Nothing special. But it's hers. 

He catches his reflection in a window as he walks past a building. Damn. He almost doesn't even recognize himself. He is a stranger. Still a stranger to himself.

It suddenly dawns upon him: How did Mikasa even recognize him? His brain replays the events of the night over and over again, almost obsessively. How she'd ran into him and nearly collapsed, how she'd felt so light in his arms, how she'd gazed up at him in alarm but then quickly recognized his face, bringing her mouth to pronounce his name. She'd recognized him even before he'd recognized her. 

How?

And then... The way she'd said it, his name, over and over again, without realizing all that it inflicted upon him. It was like being renamed, like only she was capable of reassigning his identity. Because that was it. That was the last thing she'd ever said to him before disappearing. His own name would haunt him for that same reason, because it carries the presence of her.

Then, it hits him: That's the last thing... but also the first. When she'd seen him again tonight, his name was the first thing to pour out of her lips, reviving him. Eren. Eren.

_"Always, Eren."_

He grins, laughing stupidly to himself.

He can still see her eyes, wide and round, startled as he drapes his coat around her. He can still smell her scent, even if it wasn't hers entirely. He can still hear her talking and remember. His eyes flicker down to his hand, staring at the pen for a moment. Then, a single white flake lands atop his outstretched palm, just above the ugly scar that mars it. He looks up, hardly believing the very sight before his eyes.

It's snowing.

He scoffs, shaking his head, then stops just by the edge of a sidewalk, waiting for permission to cross the street. There aren't many cars out in the night, but the sign at the end of the crossroad flashes a red hand for STOP.

He looks up at the traffic light, and even though there are no cars waiting by, he stands in place and waits as it flashes…

Green.

He doesn't move. He doesn't want to. Mikasa's laughter still rings inside his ears. Her hand still fills his palm. Her red dress still glows, purely, right before his eyes.

The girl. He sees her. He sees her even though she's no longer there.

Eren hears the Christmas music all around him, and it's faint. Beautiful. Something cracks open within him wide, wide open. He appreciates the world around him as if he were experiencing it for the very first time, the almost-six-years he's spent becoming familiar with the city suddenly disintegrating, and he's rediscovering the world through the lenses of new eyes.

He tucks her pen into his pocket, watching as small flakes of snow float down from the sky. The wind is gentle, and it carries a whisper.

Her voice, eliciting his name.

It only takes another minute, but he doesn't mind the pointless wait. Because, eventually, the red hand disappears and the pedestrian sign lights up in its place to indicate:

_Go._


	3. Hello, Stranger

Everything feels lost in a haze lately, stolen by a dense, lifeless blur. The days roll by with a monotonous groan, lugging the heavy burden of time as if each second weighed too much for the sun to carry. It rises, shines, dwindles and fades only to make room for a moon as unanimated as its brilliant partner. Nights and days are all the same. Long. Stale. Vacant.

Mikasa sighs in her sleep, eyelids locked shut in slumber. They stay this way even as her fiancé stirs awake beside her. Even as he rises from their bed to traipse to the bathroom and splash cold water on his face, brush his teeth, take a brisk shower. They miss the way he coats his fingers in gel and rakes them through his hair, how the towel hangs low around his hips and falls to his feet as he clothes himself. He buttons up his shirt, fixes a plaid tie around his neck, buckles his belt and ties his shoelaces, all tasks Mikasa would normally help him with—but not today. She’s far too tired. Too worn. Stretched thin by the events of the previous nights.

A tender kiss on her chin awakens her. It smells of hair gel and aftershave. The wet stamp it leaves glimmering on her skin screams of his sudden absence, for she hears him breeze through their apartment too soon for her to call after him, the heels of his shoes clacking to the front door that shuts a tad too loudly, a bang that frightens all remnants of sleep away. In his haste, Jean must’ve forgotten she was sleeping.

With a sigh, Mikasa’s eyes come alive. She blinks up at the ceiling above her, a hand rustling the white bed sheets as it slides up to touch the spot beside her where her fiancé had been only moments before, the sheets still warm where he’d slept. The bed creaks beneath her as she rolls onto her side, her hand lingering on the unoccupied space for a while, her eyes gazing sleepily across the room to stare out at the city through a gap between the cream-colored curtains. The world is white outside. Snow rains from the sky like tiny balls of foam spilling down from the heavens.

She closes her eyes, breathing out through her nostrils, hating herself for expecting this day to be any different from the rest. Because, of course, Jean has to work.

On a Sunday.

Mikasa quite loathes Sundays, really. There’s nothing ever to do, and it doesn’t help that their apartment is so damn huge. The vastness of it haunts her. With Jean not here, the day is all hers. Yet she feels lost as to what to do to fill in the spaces she must live in without him. What is she, if not his soon-to-be-wife? What is she, if not a successful businessman’s fiancéé?

Suddenly, a chirpy little voice croons inside her head, bouncing off the walls of her cranium like an irritating bouncy ball. _“Jeaaaaaan-bo,”_ it croons. She realizes—with an involuntary cringe—that the voice belongs to her mother-in-law. It disrupts even the faintest slither of silence with its shrilling, nails-dragging-down-a-chalkboard whine: _“Jeanbo, your fiancée—she's so beautiful! It's such a shame she doesn't smile more. Pretty girls like her should know to smile more often!”_

Mikasa frowns at the memory. Those were her exact words too.

 _“Mom,”_ Jean had protested, giving his mother a gentle tug to guide her across the sidewalk. _“Please, Mom, she does smile. Like, all the time.”_

_“Well, I don’t ever see her doing it! You should help her break out of her shell.”_

_“‘Kay, Mom. Whatever you say.”_

_“I’m serious! She needs to talk more—or at least smile a little! It frustrates me, quite frankly. It’s such a pity! Nobody likes a girl so serious.”_

Ugh.

Overhearing Jean’s mother's spiteful criticisms about her was such a regular, day-to-day occasion that Mikasa wonders why she ever feels the least bit affected by them. She should be used to her banters by now. But they still get to her. They always do, somehow.

The conversation had occurred just two weeks prior, whilst she waited patiently outside The Plaza on the night of her engagement party for Jean to finish stuffing his mom in a taxicab, his gentle pushes and benign shoves soon resorting to defeated sighs of exasperation as his clearly intoxicated mother rebuffed his attempts to get her inside.

Her words were only alcohol induced, so she didn’t really mean them—at least, that’s what Jean had tried convincing Mikasa of later on that night when she very casually (not that casually) alluded (more like proclaimed) to the fact that his mother had been squawking not-so-pleasant remarks about her all night long without the slightest hint of modesty.

_“She was just drunk, babe. Ignore her. I’m sure she didn’t mean a word at all.”_

Of course she didn’t. She probably didn’t mean the plethora of comments she’d spat under her breath since the day they’d first met either, calling her this name and that, disgracing her with subtle side glances and the occasional blatant roll of her eyes. Anti-social. Humorless. Odd, quiet little girl. _“How could my son ever be in love with a woman like that?”_ And the best part always came right after, when she would turn and, unremittingly, flash Mikasa a smile so grand that she found herself doubting her own eyes. She was a damn illusionist, that woman. One second, a smile bearing all the sincerity in the world would flash on her botoxed face before, in the flicker of a second, it would vanish, replaced by a scowl, a scornful twist of her plump lips that left Mikasa wondering if she’d merely imagined it.

But still, Mikasa wasn’t stupid. She knew very well that nobody in his family, or even social group for that matter, particularly doted on her. Because, well…

Nobody likes a girl so serious.

Little do they know, Mikasa had thought then, that she’d actually smiled and laughed a whole damn lot that night. Countless times, actually. Just not with them.

So she’d focused all her attention on the snowflakes that had begun to dance around her, enveloping her, protecting her from her surroundings. A hand had reached up to clutch the scarf around her neck. And suddenly Jean’s mother didn’t bother her anymore, for the events of the night replayed and replayed in her mind like the animated twirls of a dancer, swirling and whirling and beginning anew.

She squints her eyes at the ceiling, gauging how much time has passed since then. Has it really been two whole weeks now? Really? Two?

So, two whole weeks, huh. That’s how long it’s been since she last saw Eren, then.

Eren.

Instantly, Mikasa slaps a hand across her mouth, covering the smile that nearly breaks her stoic expression like a dangerous secret about to be exposed—as if there’s anyone even there to see her. She squeezes her eyes shut, a long squeal muffled by her palm, legs thrashing about and body squirming on the bed like a hyperactive child.

Jesus. She’s going nuts.

So much has changed since she last saw him, even though it’s only been two weeks. She’s started noticing some new things since then, things that would’ve normally escaped her. Like how Jean’s body wash has a smell very similar to the redolent Old Spice that had tinged Eren’s coat. She’d even noticed it that same night too! They were in the shower together after making it home and she went to rub the blue liquid onto his back, nearly slapping herself across the face when what sprang into her mind was an image of the green eyed, long haired, stubbly faced tannish boy of her past instead of the man standing naked right in front of her. Ha. Talk about distress.

She’s also started noticing the smell of chocolate more now too, as silly as that sounds, ever since her taste buds rediscovered her long-lost addiction after going clean for so long. Everywhere she goes, if there’s chocolate anywhere within a ten-foot radius, she can detect it. And it always makes her think of Eren. Always. God.

It’s all his fault.

Ever since she last saw him, she’s been more alert, occasionally discovering new things she’s hardly cared enough to notice before. And not only has she come to rediscover her surroundings, she’s learned new things about herself too.

Like how she’s actually a pretty bad liar.

 _“What took you so long? I was starting to get worried,”_ Jean had said, or rather, slurred to her that night when she’d made it back to him, a whiff of alcohol tingeing his breath.

 _“A friend,”_ she’d gushed without even thinking. _“I ran into someone.”_

And by the _“Oh?”_ that he had given her and the clumsy way in which his eyebrows raised, she knew he wanted further explanation.

 _“A friend of yours,”_ she’d lied, and never had a few set of words ever made her feel so dirty as this: _“We talked about the wedding. They were so kind. I can’t remember their name, though. You know how bad I am with names.”_

That was the first time Mikasa ever lied to him.

The second time came right after, when he’d opened his mouth to ask, _“Which friend?”_ and she’d lunged forward and stolen a kiss from him in such a spontaneous and rare public display of affection that she had him smiling groggily against her lips. He must’ve forgotten what they were talking about after that, because he didn’t bother questioning her further.

But then he’d sighed happily, catching her face in his hands, a shadow of confusion crossing his features. _“Chocolate. Why do you taste like chocolate?”_

And that’s when Mikasa had sputtered her second lie: _“Chapstick.”_

If she thought about it long enough, she kinda felt bad for lying to him. But it’s not like she could’ve just said the truth, right? It’s not that simple. She couldn’t just confess that she’d escaped their own damn engagement party to roam alone in a huge city, running into an ex in the process and spending time with him at a french cafe where she broke a sacred rule and actually fed herself chocolate—oh, God, no. No. Just the idea of it sounds damn horrific. Jean would not have been too pleased to hear that. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, a different voice chirps within her, and she realizes it’s actually her own this time. You haven’t even married the poor guy yet and already you are lying to him. 

“Oh, shut up,” she says aloud, rolling over to the middle of the gigantic, king-sized bed.

Great. Now she’s talking to herself.

She hears a faint purring coming from the kitchen. It’s their cat, Jiji. Not only did she name him that because his fur is black as charcoal and his face is usually settled in a rather caustic expression that reminds her of Kiki’s pet cat in the movie _Kiki’s Delivery Service,_ but also because she thinks that Mr. Pringles is a pretty stupid name to give a cat. You do not name a cat Mr. Pringles, no matter how many tubes of Pringles need to be unscrewed from around his head. One of these days, Jiji’s gonna get his head stuck in one of those darned tubes and when they’re forced to take him to the vet, they are going to ask them for their cat’s name and if so much as a single breath is inhaled and the name “Mr. Pringles” starts to form around Jean’s lips, Mikasa’s going to karate chop him on the side of the neck and knock him down unconscious.

He’s a pretty dumb cat, that Jiji. But she likes him. He’s always there to keep her company, even if he hardly ever glances her way. She can’t be bothered to move just yet though, so she pores over the ceiling, thinking that two more meows, two more meows and then she’ll feed him.

How long has she gone without moving? She’s not sure. A few more drowsy blinks later, and the vestiges of slumber finally desert her. She’s wide awake now, staring at the ceiling with renewed intent.

Maybe, just maybe, if she stays very, very still, motivation will come to her.

But then Jiji meows, and Mikasa sighs, ignoring him. One more. One more meow and then she’ll move.

Now that she thinks about it, it turns out that her bra wasn’t actually a good place to hide Eren’s address. What a splendid thing to notice right before your horny fiancé decides he wants to take you to bed, right?

You see, she’d thought it a pretty clever hiding spot back then, when she’d had her moment at the elevator. But then came saying goodbye to all the guests, and cleaning up after the party, and stuffing Jean’s drunken mother into a taxi cab. Inevitably, sooner or later, would come the time to go back home. What she hadn’t anticipated was that perhaps her fiancé—whom she’s been with for some time now and knows so damnably, perfectly well—might want to… oh, you know. Have sex?

Yeah.

In her vague and somewhat limited experience, she’s come to understand that there are five types of drunks in this world: the happy drunks, the sad drunks, the angry drunks, the philosophical drunks, and the horny drunks.

Her fiancé is the horny kind of drunk.

That night, she hadn’t expected it. She’d assumed he’d be too tired, what with his blubbering state and all, maybe he might’ve just wanted to go home and rest… sleep off a potential hangover? But no. 

His hands had startled her, gripping her waist so tightly and out of the blue that she only had a second to catch her breath before, looking back at his reflection in the mirror before her, she told him that he’d frightened her. He responded by whispering apologies into her hair. From the mirror, she could see that his eyes were closed above her head, the rest of his face buried into her head as he inhaled her. 

She’d relieved her ears of her diamond earrings, carefully removing all her jewelry before placing it inside the little jewelry box an old friend had made her as a Christmas gift aeons ago, when she heard his sleepy, imperceptible voice murmuring behind her, _“‘Kasa.”_

She’d laughed, asked him what he wanted.

Then he’d gone on to tell her how beautiful she looked, how lucky he was to have her, how happy he was that in a few short weeks she would finally be his and blah and so forth—all the while his hands roved all over her dress, working up and down her sides, bunching the skirt in his hands like he’d wanted it to vanish. He pressed a kiss to the exposed skin of her neck, then to the first small bump of bone peeking out from her spine just above the neckline. She’s shuddered a little too, and he’s just kept murmuring nonsense she couldn’t understand into her skin, which tickled.

Then came turning around to face him, giggles, ready to retaliate, when suddenly he’d plunged forth and caught her mouth in his without warning. It’s pretty obvious what went on after that, so it’s best to leave the rest to imagination.

Eventually, though, his hands grew bored of framing her ass and waist, running out of feasible ways to get the dress off her. His clouded, drunken mind cleared with the light on an idea, apparently, and soon his clumsy fingers were fumbling for the zipper behind her back. A triumphant little sound rumbled in his throat when he found it, and then she felt him tugging at it a few times before gliding it down to unzip her.

Hands to his chest, Mikasa had implored him to continue, briefly wondering how long they’d gone without burning quite as hot as this. The cool air of their room has begun to nip at the newly exposed skin of her back, Jean’s one hand struggling to unhook her bra clasp, the other roaming over her chest in a quest to anchor itself on one of her breasts when suddenly—

Her eyes shot wide open.

She gasped.

Remembered.

_Eren’s address is on my friggin’ tit!_

She’d pushed Jean away, told him to meet her in the shower, and sprang to hide the small piece of paper in a safe area as if it would dissipate if she wasn’t quick enough. That entire night—since the moment she’d run into Eren—had turned itself violently askew, snapping off the hinges and hanging upside down. Ever since then, ever since him, nothing's been quite the same. There's a stain now, a mark, a subtle tinge of him lingering around everywhere, demanding to be seen, to be felt.

And she hasn't seen him in two whole weeks. By her choice, might we add.

Her eyes fall to the clock by the bed. It's 7:45 am now. Slowly, she trails her gaze over to the dresser where the crumpled piece of paper with Eren's address still resides, hidden safely under a bunch of useless notebooks she uses to fill the top drawer she doesn't own enough clothing to fill herself.

It stays untouched. Still untouched.

_What if—_

Jiji gives his third meow before even a fragment of a thought can fully develop. Mikasa finally capitulates with a tired groan.

"Hold up," she whines, working her limbs free of the linen-sheets mess she's worked herself into. She hauls her body up to sit on the edge of the bed, letting out the most disgruntled, garbled sound of pleasure as she stretches her arms above her head and all sorts of bones click and pop up and down her body.

Jiji gives another meow. Louder, more demanding.

"God," she breathes, clomping over to the kitchen. Tragically enough, half her underwear seems to have wedged itself between her butt cheeks, baring half a cheek and giving her the most unpleasant of wedgies—which she pulls, like the refined lady that she is, with an exasperated sigh; the elastic band snapping back to her skin with a sharp snap. The noise must've startled little Jiji, for he dashes across the kitchen in alarm. He's a very nervous cat, which Mikasa always finds a bit amusing.

He springs across the kitchen floor to where she's walking: smoothing down her half-rolled-up tank top, rubbing her eyes with the edge of her wrist, yawning as if she hasn't slept in thirty years (and probably looking like it too). She almost trips over the poor creature when he slithers in between her feet, gliding his soft fur over her skin in a rare display of affection. "Jiji, please," she hisses. "Stop."

The cat just purrs.

She plucks out a can of cat food from inside one of the kitchen cabinets, pulling back the tab to peel the thin metal lid open before scraping out the smelly gunk onto a small plate with a spoon. Jiji's slithering between her feet again, purring in utter delight. Little asshole.

"Here," she says, setting down the plate on the floor in front of him. Immediately, Jiji starts nibbling his food.

Mikasa crouches down, crossing her arms over her knees, deciding that she'll watch him. Truly, it's not like she has anything better to do.

After a long while of staring mindlessly at the cat, Mikasa spaces out, her gaze shifting over to the view past the sliding doors leading to the spacious balcony. Snow’s still falling, which she admires quietly, wondering if Eren has a place like this. What's the view like from where he's living? Does the city seem to him the same way it seems to her?

Suddenly, her phone rings. On cue, she's scrambling to her feet and sprinting across the apartment to the bedroom with such vehement speed that Jiji bolts away from his food in fright.

She hurls herself onto the bed, clambering for her cell phone and snatching it into her hands. Without even bothering to check the caller ID, she answers, slightly out of breath. "Hello? He... Hello?"

Nobody responds.

She pants, bringing the phone to her face to peer down at it. The message on the screen reads:

**Missed Call:**

**Hubby**

She's rushing to to call him back, her heart practically beating out of her chest as she's nearly doing it—but then, suddenly, a text message chimes in.

It's from him.

**Hi baby. Sorry if I woke you up. I'm gonna be back late tonight so don't bother waiting. There's leftovers in the fridge from yesterday. Order take out if you want. I left the credit card on the kitchen counter jic so knock yourself out. Call u when my meeting's over k?**

She narrows her eyes, a frown digging creases between her eyebrows. She's just about to re-read the entire message when her phone does that weird bloop noise it makes when a new text bubble pops into the screen. She runs her eyes over the message.

**See u tonight**

A third text bloops in right after that.

**Love you**

Mikasa really hates Sundays.

**—o—**

Two hours later, and she's meticulously unfolding and refolding her clothes.

She's already scrubbed every inch of the bathroom tiles, washed the kitchen counters, rearranged the contents of the fridge and vacuumed just about every damn fiber off the carpets and still she cannot seem to calm the hissing torrent of her turbulent thoughts. They rage inside her, her cool and calm exposure an utter contradiction to the storm that boils within.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, she calls herself, each new “stupid” stronger than the last. Why do you always expect more than what you can have? Why do you always set yourself up for disappointment?

Jiji's lounging on the bed atop her pillow, staring at her with his large, beady eyes. He meows.

"Not now, Jiji," she grumbles, wiping off the sweat beading on her forehead with a quick sweep of her hand. _I just can't believe him!_ And really, truly, she can't.

After he'd promised to do something tonight—anything. It doesn't even have to be anything extravagant, just sitting together in the same room staring at each other would've been fine. But just... nothing! He's done this to her so many times before, she doesn't even know how she's remotely hurt by it.

Mikasa shakes her head. She's probably making far too big a deal out of this. Jean would even say so too. She needs to calm down. Just calm down, Mikasa. Breathe.

She retrieves a short tower of folded clothes to stash it back inside the drawers when, her mind still jumbled up in chaos, she ends up opening the wrong drawer instead. She finds herself stalling, genuinely surprised by the contents held within, peering down at them with hollow eyes.

It's all just a bunch of old notebooks. Most of them not even hers, but actually Ar's.

And hidden beneath one of them, is Eren's little note.

Her hand, still clenched around the knob to pull the drawer open, tightens. She feels a tingle slither down her spine. Adrenaline.

Quickly, her eyes flicker upwards to meet her own reflection in the mirror. Her face, still fresh and untouched by makeup, bears the purest resemblance of her. It nearly appalls her how much she reminds herself of her own mother. Save for, well, the scar below her eye, she's a painful spitting image of her.

She closes her eyes. No. Don't think about her. Don't think about anything at all.

After a few deep breaths, Mikasa opens her eyes again, looking at herself again. And she hardly recognizes herself. This girl, still in just panties and a tank top, with a new chip on her manicured nails and her hair still in utter disarray... _Is this really me?_

She squints, and brings a hand to her cheek. The tips of her fingers feel cold on the surface of her clammy skin. The once-flawless paint of her manicure—which she's ruined with her recent bout of cleaning—has chipped off at the edges, the natural pigment of her nails rebelling past the artificial confinement. She swears she can see dark circles ring around her eyes, her skin pale and blotchy, her fingers bony and inexplicably thin. And it's not just her fingers that look like that, the rest of her looks just as alarmingly knobby as well.

The white tank top she still hasn't changed out of hugs her torso rather loosely, and—Christ, she looks like a limp noodle. It's so strange. So painfully unlike her. Her hip bones poke out under her skin, her collarbones and shoulders so sharp and punctuated that she catches herself gaping at them in disbelief. Her unruly hair falls past her shoulders, ending some inches below the peaks of her breasts, a length that Jean very much appreciates. And how could he—how could _anyone_ find her beautiful? When was it, exactly, that she became… this?

Finally, she meets her own gaze in the mirror.

And that is when she's taken aback the most.

Her eyes, dark voids, taunt her. She can't fathom why Jean would ever praise their beauty the way he always does. Why? Why does he? She's so... She's just so…

Empty.

Fretting over a man, cleaning up an apartment by all herself for no particular reason, not a single text from friends or loved ones buzzing her phone—nothing. Nothing whatsoever. Is this really her life?

Sadness fills the emptiness in her eyes. A thought flows forth from her mind, unbidden, bleeding out like sap oozing from a tree. It's simple. The truth is very, very simple.

_I’m lonely._

Mikasa’s lonely.

She feels something split open in her chest, and the feeling is so alarmingly familiar that she sucks in a deep breath, forcing all her intent and energy into calming herself. Before the emotions can begin to overflow, before tears can even start to burn and bead over her eyes, Mikasa takes a deep breath and stops herself.

No. She will not cry. Not now. She knows better than to let her emotions get the best of her. They seldom ever have.

And then, light seems to escape the very contours of her face, all traces of emotion vanishing from her features right before her eyes. She doesn't even see herself anymore. She doesn't even see her mother. She sees nothing, feels nothing, and it's an emptiness she's grown very accustomed to. An emptiness that’s comfortable to live in. 

Without sparing another glance at the opened drawer, she snaps it shut with all the force of a hurricane, the loud pang of wood banging against the frame resonating through the apartment like a thunderclap splitting through the clouds.

**—o—**

The entire apartment is clean now. There's not a single speck of dust in sight.

Mikasa stands with her hands perched on her hips amid the center of the living room, and, with another wedgie underway, she peruses her surroundings. "What do you think, Jiji?" she asks, turning around to look at him.

He's nowhere to be found.

She sighs. "You too, huh?"

**—o—**

That's it. She can't take it anymore.

She's doing it.

After a long, hot shower and some breakfast, Mikasa decides it's best to get herself out of the apartment. God knows dangerous things happen when she's left alone inside it for too long (i.e. dangerously spotless floors that make your socks slip when you walk over them). Before leaving, she makes sure to retrieve three vital things:

One, her purse (for obvious reasons).

Two, the credit card Jean left on the counter (for revenge).

And—she'll have a hard time explaining this to herself later but—three, Eren's address. Because it can't hurt... 

Right?

**—o—**

The city is clothed white with snow. Mikasa’s breath fogs with every exhale, hands trembling slightly at her sides. Whether they shake from the cold or from nerves, she does not know. She balls them tightly into fists, taking in a steady, icy gulp of air to calm herself. A tall, wooden door stands grandly before her, only an arm's-length away. She shudders.

The number on the door reads 210, embellished in golden text.

Her eyes pull down to stare at the note in her hand. Snowflakes fall around the paper, melting into her glove. She briefly wonders if now is really the best time to come pay Eren a visit. It's snowing, there's not many people out to begin with, it's four days away from Christmas and the snow has hushed the bustling city life into a calm, eerie whisper. Most folks have opted to stay inside, yet here she is. Brave? Stupid? Both.

It takes a second attempt at reading the address for her brain to process the entirety of the words.

210 Maria St. Apt 210c

She sighs. This is it.

Her eyes land on the row of buzzers on the thick casing of the door. Three small rectangles bearing each of the inhabitants' last names are written down by hand, one on top of the other. She scans each of the names carefully.

_Braus_

_Dreyse_

And finally—her breath catches slightly when she sees it—comes the name written in a handwriting identical to the one on the paper she holds in her grasp.

_Jaeger._

Mikasa balks. Her hand hangs suspended in the air where she stopped herself mid-way of reaching out to press the button. Her mind is teeming with all sorts of worrisome questions. What if he's not home? What if he doesn't even want to see her? What if—

Okay, stop it, Mikasa. Stop it. Just press the damn button. What better do you have to do? Go home? Wallow in your misery while Jean stays all day at work? Go talk to Jiji? Who is, by the way, your only friend.

No.

Press the button.

Her hand moves on its own. Mikasa's not even sure of what's possessing her. She bites down on her lip, the tip of her finger pressing against the surface of the tiny button until—

_Brrraaaaaap!_

Lord, that thing is loud. Mikasa jumps from the startle. A few seconds go by in silence and she fiddles with some loose strands of her hair, anticipating the sound of Eren's voice breaking out from the speaker, her heart pounding in her throat, the latch of the door clicking as he turns the knob to open it, his green eyes growing wide at the sight of her.

But then a whole minute goes by.

And nothing happens.

Mikasa smooths a lock of hair behind her ear, licking her slightly chapped lips. If Eren doesn't answer soon, she's going to turn into a frigging snowman out here. She bites her lip again, pushing down on the buzzer and holding it for a moment longer, just in case.

_BRRRRAAAAAAAAP!_

Perfect. Why not alarm the whole damn city that she's here?

Suddenly, the latch clicks and the door pries open just a sliver. Mikasa straightens, her body perking up and the heels of her boots clicking together in excitement. But then…

Nothing… happens?

She frowns, confused. "Hello?" she calls out, but the door is completely still, merely hanging ajar. Huh. That's not very inviting. She dips her head to peek inside through the sliver of space between the jamb and the door.

There's no one there.

Mikasa swallows. What the heck? Is the buzzer broken? Is there some new, high-tech device that allows people to open doors without being there to answer them themselves that she's not aware of?

She looks around at her surroundings. People stroll about the city without paying her any mind, and snow has begun to accumulate at the tips of her leather boots. She takes a deep breath, and before she can even process what she is doing, her hand is pushing hard against the door. The hinges creak slightly as she wills it open, peering her head inside slowly and voicing another soft and tentative, "Hello?"

There's not a single soul in sight. As soon as she enters, she's faced with a narrow hallway and a staircase leading up to the second floor. On the one side, a wall stretches far back to a white door with the number 201A on it. That must be the first apartment. She looks down at the note in her hand. 210C. Eren is 210C.

Quietly, Mikasa makes her way up the stairs, the noise her heeled footsteps emit bouncing off the cement walls. She wishes she could hush her own feet, for she feels like an intruder. Once she climbs the flight of stairs, she is met with a wider, more spacious hallway. Two doors lie adjacent to one another on opposite sides of the walls. A wide, tall window serves as the only sustenance of light between them, save for the bare light bulb that hangs from the ceiling above. She runs her gaze over the wall closest to her on her left. That apartment door is 210B.

Mikasa swallows. This means—

210C. Eren's apartment. Right there. Beside her. Just a few steps away.

As she makes her way towards his door, Mikasa momentarily debates if she should be here. It's not like anyone even answered the door. She sort of just… went in. She's not allowed much train of thought though, for her fist is already clenched, her breath held tight inside her lungs, and she raps, twice, on the fading wood of Eren's apartment door.

She purses her lips tightly, holding her purse in front of her legs with clenched, trembling fists. It's just the cold, she tells herself. She's not really nervous. Not at all.

But then, the most daunting thing occurs. History repeats itself.

Nothing. Happens.

Nothing at all!

Mikasa sighs, knocking on the door twice more, only louder this time. If he doesn't answer, then he's not home. That's okay. That's perfect, really. That way she’ll just get to go home, resume her day as if nothing ever happened. There's no saying she didn't try, at least.

But her heart sinks at the thought. She's almost surprised by herself. Really? Was she really looking forward to seeing him that much?

Enough time standing in silence passes that Mikasa's finally convinced there's no one home. She nods solemnly to herself, almost as if to say See? I told you so. The tiny flutters of nerves inside her die out. She starts, and is just about to turn on her heels when suddenly—

The door flies open.

Mikasa's heart practically stops.

Right there, in front of her, stands, not Eren Jaeger, but a woman, with shaggy, light-brown hair that Mikasa imagines must be just about chin-length if it weren't all swept carelessly sideways in disarray. She's got an austere, amber gaze that pierces through Mikasa, a crooked smile on her lips.

To make matters worse, Mikasa's eyes flutter south.

She audibly gulps at the woman's present state.

She's practically naked, save for a half buttoned up oversized men's shirt and a whole bunch of hickeys around her neck, there seem to be no other additions lading the woman's smooth, rosy skin. And the hickeys. Good God, they are everywhere. Mikasa practically feels herself turn a bright shade of pink at the sight.

She parts her lips to speak, but the woman beats her to it.

"Who are you?" comes her caustic voice, and it's honestly dreadful. Mikasa tries not to choke on her own spit.

"O-oh, I'm... Ah, I just— I'm sorry. I must have the wrong place? I thought I had it correctly but—"

"What's your name?"

Mikasa blinks, taken aback by her question. "Um..."

"What? You don't know your own name?"

Jesus. She feels her temple throb with annoyance, practically gritting out between her teeth, "Please excuse me. I must have the wrong address. I'm sorry to have bothered you. Have a nice day."

The woman just stares at her, muttering, "Alright" as Mikasa tears her eyes from the lewd hickeys splayed across her skin, turning to walk away when—

"Hitch."

She stops.

"Who is it?"

Oh. My God.

Mikasa freezes stiff. Her stomach churns at the sound of that voice, the smoldering ashes of nerves that had died out bursting back to life. Quickly, she whips around to face the door again and is immediately met with a set of wide, startled teal-green eyes.

It's him.

"Oh, my God," he breathes.

Mikasa can only imagine her own expression. She hopes her cheeks aren't flaring cherry red, because her entire face feels like it's suddenly on fire. She opens her mouth to speak, barely sputtering out a squeaky and slightly breathless, "Hi, Eren."

He just blinks at her, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise. The startled expression leaves him soon though, as if he were actually expecting her to show up all along. He genuinely smiles, the smug bastard. He smiles.

"How did you...?" he half-queries before his brain apparently falters. His jaw hangs a bit slack and his mouth stays agape from where he'd failed to finish his question.

Mikasa just shrugs. She just shrugs. She can't speak. God, she doesn’t know if she can even breathe right now.

Eren squints his eyes at her for a millisecond before looking at the half-naked girl beside him, staring at her as if exchanging a few telepathic words.

Mikasa sucks in a breath, closing her eyes, pretending not to see the evidence of what could not be any more unpleasant standing before her (Eren's hair poking out in all sorts of directions. His taut, tan body as he, too, is practically naked, save for the sweatpants that hang low on his hips. The scars—and she doesn't remember them being this many—across the skin of his chest and stomach). Her mind whirls and sprints at about a thousand miles. Each second grows more desperately uncomfortable than the next.

Eren's surprisingly calm and composed voice snaps the chain of her thoughts when he cheerfully comments, "Mikasa. It's so good to see you."

"Oh," she heaves, opening her eyes, practically melting into the shell of her own skeleton from the embarrassment. "I'm sorry. Now's clearly not a good time. I'll just—"

"Nonononono!" Eren interrupts, waving his hands hastily in reassurance and making the girl—Hitch?—next to him give him a frowned glance. "It's alright, just"—he shoots her a glare, practically burning holes into her bitchy expression—"hold on a second."

And with that, the door is being slammed shut right in Mikasa's face.

She hears the hush-hush whispers of both of them behind the door, the woman's tempered tone raising occasionally in anger before lowering an octave to form what sounds like a needy, whiny coo. Then she hears a loud _thump!_ which makes her jump and slightly fear for Eren's life. There's more ruckus, then silence, and Mikasa is left to stare out helplessly at an inconsolable shade of fading white and a slightly chipped 210C as her mind wanders off into distance, regret and worry alike clamoring inside her head with loud, discordant clangs of: _See? I told you so._

Perhaps this really wasn't such a good idea.


	4. How Does One Breathe, Again?

"Get out."

"What!?"

"You need to leave," Eren whispers, clutching Hitch's shoulders firmly in his hands. "Now."

"But—" She’s hardly done speaking before he's turning to scramble frantically through his apartment. A hot surge of anger bubbles up to her face, painting her cheeks red. Eren's not looking at her to see it, but by the tightness in her voice and her rancor-coated hiss of “Are you fucking kidding me!?” he's pretty confident she's about to have his balls right now.

"Listen to me," his voice is low, a hushed breath flung to her across the living room, fearful of breaking through the front door and reaching the girl standing outside. "Hitch. Listen."

"What?" God, if looks could kill. The scowl on her face is fire, her eyes burning like two scorching embers from hell. Eren knows that look. Hitch is about two seconds away from hurling the nearest blunt object in his direction.

"The girl," he hastens, crouching down on the floor to reach under the sofa. "Remember the girl I told you about two weeks ago?"

"Um, no?"

"Hitch," he groans, patting the dusty floor beneath the couch and finding nothing. "The one. The one that's engaged now?"

There's a moment of silence as she watches him clamber to his feet, practically running in circles and flipping furniture over before darting into the bedroom in a quest to find what Hitch supposes is her clothes.

"You mean the girl you ran into the other night?" she drones, running a peevish hand through her hair. "The one you were freaking out about 'cause she's got your scarf or some shit?"

"Shhhh!" Eren edges the door to his room, holding out his hands and motioning for her to quiet down before mouthing, _That one_.

Despite herself, Hitch gasps.

All the anger suddenly vanishes from her face, her amber eyes growing wide before scrunching up in amusement. "Oh, my God," she chortles, holding a hand to her chest. "Her?"

"Her." He grunts as he falls to his stomach to reach under his bed. "That's the one, Hitch."

"Holy shit!" she beams. Eren rolls his eyes. "No way! That's her? She's here?"

"Yes! Just— Please, keep your voice down."

"Sorry, sorry." She peers into the bedroom, smirking at the messy sheets on his bed. "Boy, aren't you one lucky bastard right now."

Eren doesn't reply, instead he rises to his feet to throw a few scattered items across his room. Hitch watches as they fly from one side to the other, recognizing one of them as the washed-out denim jeans he wore last night. "Jesus Christ," she hears him spit under his breath, "Where the _hell_ are your clothes?"

She can't help her smile when he appears at the door, nearly panting, staring at her with panic in his eyes. She tries not to take _too_ much pleasure in his pitiful state, and motions to the kitchen behind her with a cooperative jab of her thumb over her shoulder. The expression on his face goes flat, unamused, so she flashes him a devilish grin, unable to contain herself.

"You know," she chirps as he trots past her, "she's a lot prettier than you made her out to be. It sure is a reeeeal shame that she's engaged now. You're missing out."

"Fuck off."

She laughs. "I'm just saying."

It takes Eren only seconds to find her clothes, shoes and everything. He bunches them up in his hands, then jogs over to her and shoves them hastily into her arms, pleading, "Please, Hitch, quickly."

"I should be angry at you for throwing me out like this," she coos, jutting out her chin in defiance, "but I know"—her fingers ping the waistband of his sweatpants—"that I'll be hearing from you again tonight."

"Ugh." His eyes practically roll to the back of his head. "Hurry up."

Hitch just bites her lip and snickers. Right there, she starts to unbutton herself free from his shirt, shrugging it off her arms before dipping her legs into her jeans and pulling them up without bothering to put on her underwear. Eren's disappeared back into the bedroom, where he's working himself into a clean shirt. A mischievous little smirk plays along the curve of her lips as she slips into her now-rumpled blouse, chucking her panties nonchalantly to the side in a place he'll be able to find later.

When he comes out, a dark green T-shirt merely tugged over his head, she tosses him his old shirt, which he catches, throwing her his cell phone in response and saying, "Oh! Take this."

"Wha—?" Hitch's hands scramble for it but they miss. The phone hits the wall by her side with a loud, painful thump. Eren winces at the sound.

"Hitch!"

"What the hell?" she raps. "Horrible, horrible fucking aim you got there, boy."

"Take my phone," he's begging, flinging the shirt in his hands to a corner in his room. "Please. Please, I need you to take it."

"Why ever the fuck?"

He opens his mouth to speak but, just as quickly, it clamps shut.

"Well... I..." His gaze rolls about the room, all sheepish and whatnot. He runs his fingers through his hair, parting it all to one side with an angry huff as she squints at him, forcing her feet into her shoes.

"What, Eren?"

Finally, he sighs. "I… I told her I don't have one."

Hitch straightens, staring at him with the blandest of expressions. Her fingers pinch the bridge of her nose, eyes squeeze shut, and she lets out a long breath of exasperation. For a moment, she seems to think, to contemplate his pathetic existence. "And why would you—"

"So that she would come here!" Eren hisses, pointing his fingers to the ground and jabbing them downwards to accentuate his point. "Come on, woman. Help me out."

"Fuck buddies aren't supposed to help each other out," she snarks, retrieving the poor phone from the floor and checking the screen before waving it out to him to show that there's no damage.

"No." He works his arms into the sleeves of his shirt and rolls it down along his torso. "But friends are."

Hitch guffaws loudly at that. "I never agreed to such terms."

"Please?"

"No."

_"Hitch!"_

_"Uuuuuuuuuggggghhhh."_ She pockets his cell phone, shooting him a fiery glance and searing, "You'll owe me for this, Jaeger."

Eren's laugh is breathy, the mixture of a nervous chuckle and a sigh of relief. "I'm sure we'll figure something out. Here." He hands her her coat and purse, flashing her that stupid, charming, dazzling smile she hates so much. His eyes are bubbling over with gratitude, and the tiny dimple that flashes by the corner of his mouth makes her wonder if she's ever seen him smile like this before. She narrows her eyes at him when he whispers, "Thank you."

"Whatever," she shrugs in response, granting him that smug, wolfish grin of hers and chiming, "Have fun with your sexy, engaged, totally-out-of-bounds ex-girlfriend."

Eren sighs. "I really hate you sometimes."

"Oh," Hitch smiles, "I try."

Now, they stand before the door, peering at it like a pair of idiots. Eren sucks in a deep breath, then reaches his hand out and rings his fingers around the knob very slowly, very carefully, feeling the cool metal in his grasp, practically thawing in the warmth of it. He hesitates, gaping at his clenched fist, expecting it to burst to pieces or catch fire or something—anything. Just not… this.

Life, suddenly, is too good to be true.

This can't actually be happening to him, can it? Mikasa. Outside. Waiting. Here. To see him. Him. 

This can't actually be happening.

He hears Hitch chuckling quietly beside him, amused by his expression: the sudden fear in his eyes, the shaky manner in which he draws in a breath and blows it out unevenly, how his shoulders shake at the release of air like a leaf in the wind, clinging to a branch by a stalk too thin to hold it.

He looks… odd. The look of terror certainly doesn't suit him.

"You nervous?" she whispers, a rare tinge of kindness seeping through her voice.

Eren's answer is immediate: "Terrified."

Hitch scoffs. Eren Jaeger, scared. Well, that's a goddamn first.

She gives him a gentle nudge on the ribs, teasing "You'll do fine, Fabio."

Eren takes in another breath.

Right.

The knob turns in his hand. A flicker of worry flashes through his mind then, but his thoughts are interrupted by the clicking of a latch. A millisecond of silence hangs between him and the door, suspended in the air, accompanied by the daunting realization that his entire future is literally standing right outside. Literally. There, only one door swing away, sporting a black coat and an expensive Prada purse—and with his scarf, his, draped gorgeously around her neck, stands The Girl. She's there. She's actually there.

_You'll do fine, Fabio._

You'll do fine.

Eren feels his heart hammering wildly in his chest, hoping, praying—for once—that Hitch is right.

**—o—**

The door swings open.

Mikasa jumps.

And holy God in Heaven does she wish she would've made a run for it when she still had the chance. Hitch's eyes are glaring suns, burning holes into her face with a gaze of utter displeasure. Eren, on the other hand, runs an awkward hand through his hair before the corners of his mouth tug downwards to form an upside-down smile. His eyes seem distracted, not really looking at anything in particular. They meet her gaze for the briefest of seconds, but then quickly fleeter downwards to the ground.

The silence in the air is painfully uncomfortable, and Hitch's scowl seems to have a noise of its own. Mikasa bites her lip, but before she can open her mouth to speak, the woman’s expression morphs into a wide cat-like grin that has her blinking, amazed, unsure of whether she's even seeing right.

And then, just like that, the woman downright titters, like she knows something. 

Mikasa’s brows furrow, and at that exact instant, the smiling lady waltzes past her, through the small corridor, and into the apartment right across from Eren's. She hears the door slamming shut behind her. Boom. A provocatively loud echo that resonates through the entire building and prickles her skin in a sudden wave.

This is when Mikasa feels her insides drop.

Oh. Wow. So Eren's screwing his next-door neighbor. How pleasant. Why won't the ground open up and swallow her whole right about now? Mikasa feels every ounce of her body flushing with embarrassment. She almost wants to cover her eyes, to shield herself from the utter humiliation that is this current string of events.

All her previous courage leaves her lips in a long, dreadful sigh, and she realizes, shamefully enough, that she'd been holding in her breath in anticipation.

"Eren," she gasps suddenly, chundering out a hasty thread of apologies. "I am so sorry. Really, I don't even know what I was thinking! I should've—"

"You wanna come inside?" His words catch her off guard, making her eyes widen into a pair of startled, perfectly round circles. Her long lashes circumscribe the whites around her irises, making them seem ten times bigger than what they already are. A smile digs its way through to Eren's lips as he watches her stammer, balling her fists so tightly he hears the groan of leather clenching in her gloves.

He kicks the door open with his foot, side-stepping out of the way to grant her access. "It's cold out here," he adds, beckoning for her to enter. "Please."

"Ah... I’m…” Mikasa's voice is too feeble for her liking, so she swallows, attempting to clear the lump burgeoning in her throat. “Alright.”

And then, suddenly, it's as if something just... _pulls_ her into his apartment. She's not sure exactly what it is, or exactly why she’s here, doing this, but feels almost good to let go, to relinquish control in this manner. Her feet move forward, almost entirely by themselves, and maybe it's just the curiosity—maybe it's the agonizing loneliness that she's been plagued with for so long—but, slowly, she makes her way into his home, crossing the threshold of his front door and traversing into a world very, very different from her own.

Once inside, Eren closes the door behind her, the latch clicking softly as if it were afraid to make too much noise, afraid that any commotion might break the fragility of her presence there.

For a moment, her eyes search her surroundings, and the place screams such a raw presentation of Eren that she almost wants to laugh. Really, just... laugh, because it's all suddenly too funny. Even the air in this place is different. Like it isn't part of this world.

There's a gentle mess of things here and there, books stacked up against walls and even some scattered across the floor. Dust clings to the idle blades of the fan that hangs from the ceiling. Wine-colored curtains have been wretched carelessly to the sides, revealing windows that play a scene of snow that falls and falls and falls endlessly. The atmosphere in his apartment is still and warm, disconnected from the cold breeze that freezes all life outside with its frigid, icy blows.

Where she stands, Mikasa can see a spacious living room, in which a large sofa, a coffee table, and an armchair that clearly don't go together stand meekly among the wooden floor. The entire place is splattered with rich, earthy tones. Greens, grays, browns, faint yellows, all that. It makes her own home, a stark display of spotless creams and whites and chrome, feel wholly unfamiliar. There is a warmth in the colors, like if they gave off some sort of comforting, nuzzling heat. Mikasa doesn't really know how to explain it, but they envelope her. They lure her in. The colors, they speak. The entire place does.

She recognizes some of the furniture they owned back in their old home many years ago—and the TV, a big, wide-screen, HD monster of a contraption that Ar's grandfather had given them a long while back as a hand-me-down, makes something tighten painfully in her heart.

So she rips her eyes away from it, peering at the door that hangs ajar on a wall to her left. A sliver of space allows her a peek into his bedroom, where a bed with wildly disheveled sheets resides. Maybe it's just the sudden stillness of the room, or the soft sound of Eren's breathing, but Mikasa's turbulent thoughts simmer down to a stillness led by solemn admiration.

Silence.

This time, it is welcome.

Mikasa suddenly fathoms that this apartment is Eren’s own personal little spot in this vast world. The dusty fan, the books scattered on the floor and stacked against the walls, the discombobulated sheets on his bed and the mismatched furniture; the smell of something different simmering in the air, tingeing every sliver of space with a declaration of… of different. Of new. Of something wholly new and yet entirely familiar.

Right there, on that bed, goodness knows how many girls he's bedded, freely, unbounded, simply led by the whimsical laws of his body. Because that's just him, you see, the Eren she remembers. Impulsive. Not one to delve too deep into anything unless it truly rings his insides with something more. And who knows? Perhaps he was even in love once—perhaps he's even in love right now, and that is the place where he worships her, with all the fervent affection he so direly possesses. She almost feels sinful at thinking this way, yet the thought is pure. Simply curious. Admirant, even.

Every visible corner around her conveys a map to what he's like inside. His untidiness, his blaze, how he talks and how he thinks and even the Persian rug flung to some corner of the room shouts some small declaration of who Eren might be now. The place is his spirit turned inside out.

She closes her eyes, the small pocket of stillness within her dissipating. Eren’s unmoving behind her, standing with his hands stuffed in his pockets, almost as if he's waiting for her to finish eyeing the place before he’s allowed to speak.

Mikasa's baffled.

By all this.

How does he do it? Possess such courage as to let her walk into his own home? She would not have been capable of doing such a thing. That would be like ripping her coat wide open and baring herself to him, like allowing his eyes to pierce right through her and into her very core, to the naked expanses of her inner self she works so hard to keep buried from the world around her. This is his home. The epitome of all that is Eren. And he just lets her waltz right in here like it's nothing.

How does he do it?

And, most importantly, why?

"So..." comes his voice, and it's soft. She opens her eyes at the sound of it, deep and husky. "What brings you here?"

A weary breath deflates her lungs.

Well, that's a very good question, Eren Jaeger. She was sort of wondering the same thing.

"I'm, uh..." her throat runs dry, so she tries to swallow, but it doesn’t help. "I… um. well… I think… I've..." Oh, fuck it.

"That's alright," Eren offers gently. "I have to give you something anyway."

Mikasa's eyes widen momentarily. Her voice seems to have regained some small fragment of its usual composure when she says, "You do?"

"Your pen," he smiles. "You forgot it."

Her thin eyebrows knit together. "My pen? I don't understand."

"When I gave you my address..." Eren says, making his way to stand by her side, cautious enough to leave an ample gap of space between them. "You turned around and left without it. I still have it."

Mikasa's frown only deepens, but the clarity that blooms in her eyes indicates that she knows exactly what he speaks of. "Eren... Why would I need that back?"

The smile he flashes her then could outright blind a man. She finds herself struggling to keep a straight face in its presence. She swallows again. 

"We'll just pretend you came here to retrieve it," he shrugs. "Problem solved."

Mikasa stiffens.

For a moment, this causes panic to spur inside her, to scream, _You know you shouldn't be here. Get out. Get out get out get out!_ Because she's so far out of her comfort zone—islands, oceans, worlds away from her comfort zone. And her reason’s gone. There's nothing pulling her, pushing her, urging or ushering where to go. Suddenly, she's alone. Without her courage, she's left deserted.

So get out.

This was a mistake.

Get out. _Now._

Mikasa clears her throat, standing straighter, pulling her frame up higher to seem taller, more in control. "Fair enough," she says. She's recomposed herself, it seems, and the soft smile that appears on her lips serves as her own declaration of the accomplishment.

Eren returns her smile with a quip of his brow, and the ghost of a chuckle passes through him before he's turning to walk away. Mikasa holds her ground, ignoring the trembling of her hands as she removes her gloves carefully, one by one, perusing her surroundings with calm, diligent eyes, finally deciding:

Ten minutes.

She gives herself ten minutes, and after that, she'll be gone. Ten minutes at his place won't kill her. She can do it. She's got this. 

"Want some hot chocolate?"

Mikasa's body perks up like an exclamation point. “Really?”

"I'll take that as a yes, then," Eren smiles, the pearly row of his teeth practically glistening in the light. He's turning to walk into the kitchen when Mikasa reaches out a hand to object.

"No, wait!"

He turns around to look at her. There's a benevolence in his eyes that suggests eternal patience for her, as he seems to know what she's going to say even before the words shoot out of her mouth.

"You…" she wrings her hands together, bunching up her gloves with a clenched fist. "You don't have to do that, Eren."

"Please," he scoffs. "Your cheeks are practically glowing. You're freezing. Just let me make you some, okay?"

Mikasa's fingers bolt to her cheeks. "Alright," she surrenders, but he's already gone into the kitchen to prep her a cup of the chocolatey drink. 

"Put your stuff wherever," he calls out, his voice retaining its calm composure, not even deceiving him once.

"Sure," her voice is tiny. Eren couldn't have heard it—not that it would make any difference if he did. She sighs, shoving her gloves into her purse before shrugging off the thick coat lading her shoulders. She hangs it up on one of the wooden arms of the coat hanger standing by the door, then carefully peels off the scarf around her neck before hanging that up too. Her fingers brush over the skin of her neck in the process, and she feels the blushed, burning furnace of her flesh.

Her purse handle digs into her skin from the bulk of its contents, which is starting to hurt. Briefly, as she saunters over to the kitchen, she can't help but to think of Jean, of how he still hasn't called her, of how her phone might just ring with an incoming call from him at any moment—of how really, truly, this is the worst place to be in case it does.

But all this is forgotten when she sees Eren standing with his back facing her, heating water in an electric kettle and starting up the coffee maker. Hot chocolate for her, coffee for him. It's almost like the old days, the way the smell of coffee floats out of an opened jar and fills the very molecules in the air. She almost swears she hears Ar's voice then, coming out from somewhere, whispering to her in the silence, telling her to go on, take a seat. Go on.

She thinks she feels him there. She's not so sure.

It's truly almost like the old days, the way the smell of coffee floats out of an opened jar and fills the very molecules in the air…

Almost.

**—o—**

Eren hears heeled footsteps approaching from behind. He turns his head to glance over his shoulder, catching a good glimpse of Mikasa, instantly regretting it.

He darts his eyes away, gesturing to the island that divides the living room from the kitchen, where three bar stools are tucked beneath the protruding edge. "You can sit, if you want," he tells her, fixing his eyes back on his current employment. His hand sifts through coffee granules to find the small measuring spoon buried inside, and some black specks stick to his palm from nervous sweat. He goes to wipe his hand clean on a kitchen towel when he hears her breathing, "'Kay."

Mikasa doesn't spare another second before taking a seat and slumping her purse on the rustic countertop. He's keenly aware of the screech of wood on wood as she pulls one of the stools back to climb onto it. Then, there's silence, followed by the faint sounds of her fingers tapping mindlessly on the wood.

_Tap._

_Tap._

_Tap._

For a moment, Eren is grateful that he's been too lazy these past few months to cut his long hair, for he feels the tips of his ears burning. Red. As red as the scarf that was coiled around her neck just seconds ago. His cheeks feel a little flushed too, so thank God he's been too lazy to shave also. 

Jesus.

_Tap._

_Tap._

_Tap._

He can feel her eyes on him, digging into his back, and for a second, he's got to remind himself how to breathe properly.

_Tap._

_Tap._

_Tap._

In. Out. Not that hard, Eren. Not that hard.

The tapping stops.

"Pretty," he hears her comment. 

He doesn't dare peer over his shoulder to look at her this time. "What's that?"

"Your place," she croons, "I like it."

"It's nothing special."

"But it's… how do I say it… homey?"

"Homey?" he snorts.

"Yeah. Homey."

"If you say so."

"Hhhhhaaaaaaaahhhhhh," he hears her sigh, and it's so drawn out he can't help it when he turns to check if she's alright.

A big mistake, that.

Mikasa's staring out a window with her chin perched in her hand, blinking, not really paying attention to anything. A few strands of raven hair have fallen out of her neat, little bun and burn a bright red color in the glow of the light. Her profile is soft, and perfect, apexing at the pointy tip of her nose. Her lashes, so long they're practically awnings over her features, flutter every so often with each shift of her eyes as her pert lips part with every breath of—

Ah.

Eren rips his gaze off her, forcing his attention back on the coffee pot. _Tap. Tap. Tap._ The tapping's gone to a place inside of him now—a fervent thumping in his chest.

"You tired?" he manages to speak. He hopes the slight tremor rising in his body doesn't slip into his voice.

"No." Her voice is so light. "I'm just thinking."

Thinking, Eren ponders. Thinking about what? "Oh," is all he musters, though. He can't think of what else to say.

"Do you..." she starts, but her voice falters.

Eren decides to finish the remainder of the steps in silence before flipping the coffee maker power switch to on and turning, very cautiously, to face her. His fingers curl over the edge of the countertop behind him as he leans his weight onto it, the sharp edge of the marble cutting into his butt.

"Do I what?" he prompts. His voice grows ever softer.

There's a waver in Mikasa’s tone when she queries, "Do… Do you have a bathroom?"

Eren's features align into a peculiar sort of frown, half-worried, half-confused. Something in her face has changed entirely. She looks… scared. She must've mistaken his expression, though, because she's quick to correct herself and express, "I mean… ugh. Sorry. I meant, can I use your bathroom?"

"Right in there." Eren points to his room. She turns her head over her shoulder to follow the line to where he's pointing, and he catches the way she seems to stiffen. "It's the door to the left."

Her neck snaps back to face him. She looks at him with an expression of… panic? Her voice grows even smaller when she says, "You mean in your room?"

"Yep."

"Oh…" Her gaze falls to her hands, which wring each other nervously again, one within the other, taking turns. It's like… she's terrified of him or something. Eren tries to open his mouth to speak, but her voice interrupts him.

"Okay. I'll be right back."

Before he can even say anything, she's hopping off the stool and gliding across his home and to his bedroom. She hesitates for a millisecond, and then pushes the door in further and makes her way inside. Eren watches as she slinks into his room, the _click click_ of her heeled boots muffled to low thumps due to the carpet flooring in his bedroom. He watches her vanish past his bed, listens closely as the door to the bathroom opens, closes.

Eren releases the longest breath he's ever held in his life, his chest deflating with a wheezing noise like an empty accordion. Both his hands run fretfully through his hair, bunching up some strands in his fists, pulling.

The water in the kettle starts to boil.

It bubbles angrily as he sucks in a few deep breaths, cradling his face in his hands. He groans, and the sound is trapped inside his palms. "Fuck." The room is spinning. Or maybe that's just his head. Oh, God. "Fuck me."

Alright. Okay, so maybe this isn't going to be as simple as he thought. Easy peasy, he'd told himself. Easy peasy. 

That was a lie.

Hitch's voice coos from somewhere in the distance, gnawing away at what little sanity he has left.

_You'll do fine, Fabio._

Yeah, right.

It's like, suddenly, Mikasa's presence is all that shines before his eyes. Even from behind his closed lids, he can see her! Feel her. Grasp the image of her standing there, behind him, with her purse in her hands, the coat and scarf finally off her body, baring her to him in simplistic ways he just isn't prepared for yet. Her hair all tied up, her slender arms hidden inside black sleeves of cotton, the small hairs that escape her little bun like they don't belong in there, like they're not meant to be drawn so far away from her face—and then, his own breath fucking hitching in his throat out of nowhere; his brain somersaulting inside his head, resetting, swiped blank.

Her chest. And collarbones.

The slender slopes that bend up her neck, down her spine, over her hips, across her legs—everywhere. Everywhere. A silhouette, a figurine carved from the richest marble. Her eyes, always so wide and startling, staring at him, eyeing him, burning into him, making his insides combust. 

But she's real.

Mikasa, she's really here. She's come back. She actually stopped by and paid him a visit. She's in his bathroom right now. His bathroom. In his home. Mikasa Ackerman is actually here and holy shit Eren somehow managed to convince himself that he could handle that. 

After a few more seconds of wallowing in self-pity, Eren forces his head up from his hands, dragging his fingers down his face so that it looks like it's melting. His eyes flick over to the living room, perhaps not fully believing the circumstances of his reality yet. Perhaps deciding that he never will. He sighs, and he's about to turn his gaze away when—

Pink.

Lacy.

Hanging on the lamp shade like a goddamn Christmas adornment—it's Hitch's underwear. Hitch's. Underwear.

Eren's breath catches in his throat.

Mikasa must’ve seen…

Fuck.

"Kill me." The prayer is to no one in particular. "Kill me now."

**—o—**

Staying calm is hard sometimes. Especially when you're having trouble breathing.

And Mikasa's having _a lot_ of trouble breathing right about now.

Her lungs seem not to want to cooperate as she darts her way through his bedroom, ignoring—trying very hard to ignore: the rumpled, messy sheets on his bed, the creamy color of the walls, the soft scent of him that lingers about everywhere and only wails its existence right into every prickling end of her nerves as she struggles not to suffocate. It's too much. It's all suddenly too much for her.

The bathroom isn't hard to find. It's a door to the left, just like he'd said, pried wide open so that she's granted with a full-frontal view of just how small it is inside. Too small. Not the right place to have an episode right now but it'll have to do—she has to hide somewhere.

Hide.

As soon as she makes her way in, she's slapped across the face with the smell of a laundry detergent hauntingly redolent to the one that Ar always carried in his clothes—the one Eren's been using since forever.

The one his mother always used for him.

An image, fleeting, flutters its way across her mind: Auntie kneeled on the floor of their home, trying to teach her and Eren how to fold their own clothes properly. Eren failing, getting frustrated. Auntie laughing, her eyes disappearing into happy, crinkly crescents, her laughter resonating through their home like music echoing inside a theater. 

And Armin.

Smiling. Talking about something new. Arming hearing, listening, cherishing the sounds around him before— 

Stop.

The past is too much. Too much. It's all too much right now.

The door falls shut behind her. She leans her back against it, faint, breathing heavily, her knees trembling with every tiny gasp. The walls seem to constrict themselves around her, closing in, the room growing smaller, growing tighter. She’s shaking so much. Her breaths are short, shallow, her heart hammers brutally inside her chest. Her pulse drums within her ears—she can practically hear her own blood rushing through her. 

What is wrong with her?

She closes her eyes, taking in a long, heavy breath, swallowing the breezy smell of the detergent along with it. The bathroom is a lot bigger than she'd initially thought, but her mind barely processes this. Breathe. That's all she has to do now. Breathe.

How much time passes? She's not sure. Her thoughts fade into the back of her mind, melting into thick, obsidian goo.

Nothingness.

Before her, nothing, just an image she has programmed into her head: a balloon. It inflates—inhale. It deflates—exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Breathe.

A few more minutes pass.

The storm, slowly, quiets. Her heart's drum is a steady beat, hard, inside her. The world stills, there is nothing but her own breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Control. Smooth sailing…

Control.

She opens her eyes. The world focuses, little by little, and she sees the washing machine, then the dryer, both inside a small closet behind an opened sliding door that takes up nearly an entire wall. She blinks. Dizzy. That's always what happens when she goes through this, these episodes. She's not sure what to call them yet. They just happen sometimes. 

Her breaths stutter in and out of her mouth. She's still leaned against the door, succumbed to the calamity of her emotions.

Suddenly, she hears Eren's footsteps approaching from outside.

Her heart stops.

The wooden floor creaks under his weight as he moves. It sounds like he's nearby, maybe inside his own room now. But then the sound disappears back into the distance. He's back at the kitchen.

Another deep breath, long, it kinda hurts her lungs to bear through it. There's a flush all throughout her body, the eerie stillness that follows all disasters. The flushing tingles at her fingertips, coiling in her palms. There's cramping all throughout her muscles, but she ignores it. It's okay. You're okay. You're fine now. You're fine.

White. A drain. She's staring into the bowl of the wash basin. How did she get there? Doesn't matter. Breathe. Breathing is what matters. Breathe.

She twists the knobs to lukewarm water, watching as it shoots out of the faucet and splashes into the sink. She lets her fingers slip into the stream. Cold, it kinda hurts her hands. She holds them there, waiting for the feeling to return to her fingers. Soon, the water turns hot, then scalding, and she's hissing, snapping her hands away.

At least she feels now. Her body processes touch. She pokes her arm. Feels it. Okay, that's good. Her breaths are longer, less labored, less clogged in her throat. Part of her wants to call out for Eren—for anybody—to help her. Maybe… talk to her? Maybe that will help? She doesn't know. She doesn't know what really helps right now.

A few more minutes pass. There's silence outside. Eren's not making a single noise—or perhaps Mikasa's just not hearing any. Soon, she's conscious, looking at her own reflection in the mirror. 

She runs her gaze over her own features in the mirror, finding the same stranger she saw back home. She takes another deep breath. Balloon inflates. Balloon deflates. Just like that. You're fine now, you're really fine.

Peevishly, she picks at a few strands of hair that have fallen out of her bun, smoothing them behind her ears, watching the faint blush that rises to her cheeks and, this time, understanding it. She's hot, all of a sudden, her body engulfed in fathomed flames. It always happens like this. Her body just… freaks out sometimes. Her heart starts beating like crazy and her lungs shrivel up to empty sacks of nothing and suddenly she's sweating and suffocating and shaking so much she swears she'll fall apart.

Nobody knows about these episodes, and she's been crippled by them for a few years now.

Nearly six, actually. Nearly six years.

They don't happen often. But, lately, they've been occurring more frequently, arising in the most unexpected of times. At dinners. At parties. At evenings spent with Jean's parents—sometimes even when she's just alone with him, where she knows she's completely safe.

It takes another few moments before her heartbeat quiets down to healthy intervals with enough time in between. _Ba-dump._ A second. _Ba-dump._ Another. Breathing's a little easier now too. She's getting there. She's calming down.

There's a big part of her that suggests she just go home. Just call it quits. She lasted, what, ten minutes in there before flipping out? She should just go home now. Go home and quit. Wait for Jean to get out of work like she's supposed to. Be a good wife, a decent person.

This time, her eyes run over her surroundings a bit more carefully, absorbing what they see. She sees the toilet, the tub that doubles as a shower, the blue tiles on the walls, the chipped paint of the sink in front of her, the small mirror specked with dust. 

The pale shower curtain is wretched wide open, and she sees shampoo, a loofah, all the basic necessities. But something familiar catches her eye then. It makes her smile.

Old Spice body wash.

The same one as Jean's.

Mikasa scoffs lightly, covering her mouth with her hand. Well, isn't that uncanny?

Eren's probably wondering what's taking her so long by now and, to be honest, Mikasa's a bit surprised he hasn't come by to check up on her yet. She flushes the toilet to feign some sort of usage, and it does that horrible, gurgling noise that sounds like the poor thing is choking on itself.

Two things push her out of that bathroom and bring her back to Eren: One, the stubborn decision that she will remain outside of her comfort zone until it goes out to meet her where she stands. And two—well, this one's pretty obvious.

Hot chocolate.

**—o—**

Eren looks up from his drink when he hears the creak of the bathroom door being pushed open. Her footsteps follow. He darts his eyes back down to his cup when he knows she'll be close enough to see him.

When Mikasa appears at the door, she finds him leaned over the island with his elbows propped atop the countertop, holding a ceramic mug in his hands and blowing at the steam wafting off of it with pouty lips. In front of him is a smaller _My Neighbor Totoro_ mug filled to the top with hot chocolate. A nice layer of whipped cream floats on the top.

Mikasa's mouth begins to water, on cue.

She smiles when Eren looks up.

Their eyes meet. Finally.

"You alright?" he asks her, taking a small sip of his coffee.

"Yeah," she breathes, hopping onto a bar stool. Her cheeks still feel a bit hot, and there's a small buzz, a vibration in her palms. She realizes how close they are now, with him being on the other side of the island, right across from her, leaned over so close that she can see the golden flakes in his eyes as he watches her, searching her face.

He drops his gaze to his drink, dragging his fingertips along the side of his mug.

"I didn't know how much you wanted so..." sliding the can of whipped cream over to her side, he smirks. "Knock yourself out."

"Thank you." She takes the small mug in her hands and brings it to her lips, breathing in its chocolaty smell mixed with a small trace of something that is just wholly Eren, as he's standing so close she can also smell something else, something sweet and earthy, radiating off his clothes and skin. The odd mixture of scents is strangely comforting to her. 

Homey.

Eren doesn't even try to hide the fact that he's staring at her now. She feels his gaze on her as she closes her eyes, swallowing a small sip, and lets out a tiny sigh of happiness, which makes Eren smile.

"Good?"

"Delicious."

"Great."

And then they're silent.

The sound of their quiet sipping fills the room. Slurp. Sip. Swallow. They're so silent, Mikasa thinks she hears the snow falling outside, even though that's fairly improbable. Her eyes wander about her surroundings, admiring the dark spots and ridges on the rustic wooden counter top. She trails a dark vein with her finger, taking in another mouth-filling sip of hot chocolate. Eren's gone very silent in front of her, much like how he was when he allowed her to first enter his home. Waiting. Waiting for her to finish viewing her surroundings with an ease she, herself, does not possess.

Soon, though, her eyes trail off to something else.

Eren isn't looking at her, so she takes this as her chance.

She eyes the small cleft on his chin, the button tip of his nose, the individual hairs of stubble on his face that look sharp and prickly, sprouting out the smoothness of his skin and dotting it like tiny pine needles. She thinks of how they must feel under her fingertips, then doesn't bother to scold herself for such a thought.

He seems to be spaced out, gazing at the counter top beneath him, tracing the veins on the wood with his gaze. His eyelashes are long, shooting straight out and curling up ever so slightly at the ends, fringing his emerald eyes like heavy curtains drawn shut to conceal precious jewels. She eyes the punctuated bump of his Adam's apple, bobbing as he takes down another sip.

Mikasa briefly contemplates doing the same, to break the chain of her reverie, but chooses not to.

Mindlessly, she eyes the tendons stretching on his neck, the small sliver of skin over the junction of his collarbones, where his shirt begins and covers the rest of him. His arms are bent over the counter, so she sees the swollen mounds of his biceps, the hidden crook of his elbows, the blonde hairs on his forearms and the veins that stretch out like roads on a map, leading up to the smooth tannish backs of his hands whence his long fingers stretch and curl around his mug, baring the bony ridges of his knuckles.

There's a tiny crease on the skin between his brows, which makes Mikasa wonder if she's ever even seen that there before. It might come from age. It might just be because of the intent way he's staring at the counter.

She narrows her eyes, and now she's the one blatantly staring. Eren doesn't seem to notice, though, or to mind, as his thoughts have apparently consumed him. She watches him blink. She watches the way one of his hands leaves the mug and lands over his other arm, fingers absently grazing the exposed skin of his bicep, his nails leaving pale scratch marks on his skin. 

His eyes are on her in an instant.

Mikasa jumps, then quickly focuses all her efforts into taking another gulp of her hot chocolate. The thick liquid travels down her throat as a scorching lump of fire. She winces visibly at her dumb mistake.

Eren's eyebrows raise, very slowly, to the top of his head. 

She doesn't hesitate to retaliate against his stare with a low and breathy "What?" that makes his insides shake like jell-o.

"What what?"

Mikasa simpers, tracing the rim of her cup with the tip of her finger. He stares at the chipped nail polish of her nails, thinking of how it sabotages the delicate balance that is her utter, unconscientious perfection. 

There's that lisp, breathless voice of hers again, rising and dipping with every word. He could get lost in it. "You're staring, Eren," she says, and he scoffs. He can't help it. The smirk that draws itself on his lips is impulsive.

It's as if the demonic spirit of Hitch herself summons from within him, and he spits out before he can even think, "Oh, I'm the one staring?"

And that, right there, is when he takes a gigantic shit on everything.

The screech of tires burning over asphalt, the abrupt scratch of a record that's been interrupted too soon—they are all the sudden look on Mikasa's gorgeous face. Funny how a set of simple words can completely change everything. Because Mikasa stiffens like a tree trunk. Mikasa stifles back a gasp. Mikasa suddenly looks… terrified.

Of him?

Terrified of him.

Eren watches helplessly as her eyes widen for a millisecond before shooting down to the mug in her hands, coiling into herself, shrinking away from him. She looks like she's about to fall off the chair. Her body's suddenly too heavy, weighed down with shame.

Eren swallows. Panicking.

Instantly, he hates himself, his big mouth, his impulsive bouts that don't let him think. He cringes. Hard. It's like he's watching a car wreck—his own. 

"Shit."

She won't even meet his gaze. She's staring at the drink in her hands intently, not saying a word. Her silence kills him.

"Fuck," he breathes. "I'm sorry."

"No, it's fine."

"Really, I—"

"It's okay."

Eren bites his lip.

Mikasa still won't look at him.

"I'm sorry," she's the one to say. "I don't know why I came. I..."

Eren feels the ceiling collapse on top of him. He can't breathe. He's choking when Mikasa suddenly laments, "I think this was a mistake."

Oh, my God.

Please.

No.

Her hands snatch her purse. "I should go."

There's the haunting screech of wood on wood as she pushes the chair back, the click of her heels meeting the floor and she's standing. The very things that brought Eren joy just moments ago, they hurt him. They make him straighten up and ball his hands into tight fists. He's watching. He's helplessly watching as it's all happening too fast. His mind barely processes anything at all except for:

She's leaving.

"Wait!" He nearly bolts over the island in desperation to stop her. "Hold on. Just— Wait. Please?"

Mikasa's expression is pained. She shakes her head at him, slumping her purse over her shoulder and "I really shouldn't, Eren. I—"

"Mikasa." The way he says her name makes her stop. He takes this as his chance, whispering, apologizing to her with "Stay. Please. I just— Ignore what I just said. Pretend I didn't say anything. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot, Mikasa. I'm sorry."

She looks startled, surprised at his reaction. 

"I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable…" he bites his lip again, scrunching his eyes shut, running both of his hands through his hair. "Agh, shit." Mikasa watches the way some locks glide through the spaces between his fingers, and how his teeth pin his bottom lip, pinching it so tightly she fears he might draw blood.

Eren opens his eyes to look at her, and sees that her cheeks are red. Flushing. And she looks so small. Mikasa, out of all people, looks suddenly so small to him.

"Please?" he heaves, and there he goes, biting that damn lip again. "Seriously, I'm sorry."

Mikasa remains still, unsure of what to do.

Why is he apologizing so much? Why is he so contrite? He sounds so... desperate.

There's fading imprints on his bottom lip from where his teeth had sunken into it. Mikasa watches the pale patches start to fade. What should she do?

Go home, her mind says.

Stay, her heart whispers.

Breathing. How does one breathe, again?

Mikasa opens her mouth to speak, and Eren stares as a thin thread of saliva stretches between her parting lips. But then they clamp shut, pressed taut together, and she lets out a short breath through her nostrils.

"I really shouldn't," she vents, almost desperately, like an animal trying to escape a cage. "I shouldn't be here at all."

The sigh that leaves Eren's lips is long. He can't help it when he dares, "Then why are you, Mikasa?" But it's a very good question. It's the right question.

It makes her think.

He's challenging her, and Mikasa sighs, too. Her fingers clench even tighter around the purse handle as she murmurs, "I don't really know." Her voice is so frail. It almost breaks.

Eren takes in a sharp breath, and the sound makes her look at him.

"Well, then..." He finds his coffee mug again, bringing it to his lips and taking a long gulp to try to calm himself. His breath is hot inside his throat when he carols, "Isn't that something?"

Her face—Mikasa's perfect, angelical face—it brightens. Slowly, so slowly, like sunlight dawning over the world.

Eren finds some courage. From where it came from, he doesn't know. But he opens his mouth, passing the tip of his tongue over the bruised surface of his bottom lip, and hopes he'll make her stay, just a bit longer, stay, with a last-minute addition of "How'd you even get in here, anyway? The front door's always locked."

Mikasa sighs then, and it's light, fluffy. Like she's made entirely of clouds.

There's a tenderness in the silence swimming about in the room. It's got a presence.

"If I told you," she says, "you wouldn't believe me at all."

Eren tries not to smile. Because her hand has found its place back on the bar stool. Her feet are planted on the floor. Now, she's looking at him, staring at the golden flakes in his eyes.

Eren is left breathless and stupid all over again. Because she smiles. And he does too.

There's a promise. It’s here, everywhere, in the very flakes that fall outside, in the sighs of the winter wind that breathe that she won't go. Not yet. Not now. Because she's got his heart in her hands. She's got him blundering and fretting and feeling all sorts of brilliant emotions that only happen when you're alive, that only happen when you're breathing.

Because there's that screech of wood on wood again. That click of her heels upon his floor.

Those eyes staring at him and burning through flesh and bone and right into him.

There's his own lips parting, gasping, taking in a breath for him to test:

"Try me."


	5. If Life is a Garden, then I Am a Weed, and She is a Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: graphic sexual content.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah yes, the notorious flashback smut scene. this is the final chapter in part 1. some of you that have read the original fic may notice that this chapter has dwindled in size (originally 25k and is now 20k) to remove some facets of narration that i don't believe are completely relative to the story. 
> 
> having that said, an old reader of mine pointed out that the edited smut scene in this chapter gravely compromised the raw anguish that is meant to be depicted on the character, and the discomfort that the reader is supposed to feel when witnessing the flashback. for that reason, i took the chapter "down" and replaced the edited smut scene with the original one. thanks again sweet reader <3
> 
> i recommend reading the chapter in segments, as it is a lot to digest at once. happy reading! (sort of)

How can she say no?

When, try me, he says. Try me.

There's something in his eyes, a veil of emotion eclipsed by that impossible shade of green with blue. He's got that lip—that damned lip of his—pinched between his teeth again. Their breathing is the only sound occupying the dense space between them, the bubble of distance they have kept between one another all this time. 

Restraint is the step back from his previous frantic gesture when his hand, flying out to stop her, had reached out in despair. To her, for her, but not daring any contact. They don't fathom such a thing. 

Delicate is the way she stands, uncertain. Over the island, his hands form tighter fists, as if the gesture were enough to hold him down, to stop him from granulating to dust in case she does decide to leave, just walk away from him again. Forever.

Because the possibilities are still floating around them in the air.

Because there is still that vibrant, plausible yes. That scathing, undesirable no.

Because it truly is that simple: one step, one foot after the other, one gentle glide out his home. A door, the soft click of it falling shut. The daunting boom that resonates, that indicates she's left. That's all it takes. That's all it takes to kill a person.

Mikasa stalls.

She hears one of his knuckles popping.

She eyes the pink plush of his lip, still trapped between his teeth.

She sees the way his cheeks burn, a streak of red in his embarrassment.

When was the last time she saw someone reacting this way? When was the last time she heard anyone apologize to her like this? When has anyone ever begged for her to stay?

Begged for her like this?

Eren’s eyes are sharp and luminous. Staring at her, staring at her. Filling the cracks of her skin, staining them, weighing her down. He's waiting. Waiting for her words.

"Um..." Mikasa’s eyes fall to the abandoned mug of hot chocolate. The whipped cream has softened to a weak lump that swirls into the drink in faint streaks of white.

A sigh, barely audible. It leaves her mouth, and then his. She hesitates. Her eyes skitter over to the door, to the place she knows she should be going to. Go home, her mind tells her. Go home, every atom in her body screams. Go home.

But her lips are moving before she can stop them, defying her. "I buzzed," she manages, and Eren looks tense, like he's holding his breath. Hanging. Clinging to every word she says.

He nods imperceptibly for her to continue. Still blushing. Still red. He nods.

Mikasa swallows.

"I buzzed," she repeats, clearing her throat to assuage its tightening passage. "But nothing happened."

Eren’s shoulders loosen slightly. "And?"

Mikasa's gaze falls, uncertain. Go home. Go home. Jean's voice is the one that tells her now. _C'mon, Baby. Come back to me. Go home._

But…

Try me, Eren's murmur urges on, a faint wisp that floats around and latches onto her. 

Try me.

"And..." She closes her eyes, feet still planted to the ground, unsure of where to go, what to do. Her heartbeat’s shot up to her temples. She’s pulled to the door, pulled to Eren. Held stuck between the two. Stuck between a yes, a no, her quickening heartbeat, the possibilities that loiter, the glorious can of whipped cream on the island and the way her body shakes and she's so skeptical of what's right and wrong anymore. She's being tugged and pulled and soon she's going to be tearing.

Mikasa opens her eyes again. "And so I waited. Outside. I waited outside."

The corner of Eren's jaw does that little thing when he tightens it, that little throb. Mikasa thinks he's going to say something then.

He doesn't.

"But then I was getting cold so..." She glances at the chipped nail polish of her left hand, which tightens even more around her purse handle, trembling. She can't stop all this trembling—and why won't it stop? Why is she so nervous? Why can't she breathe properly and why does she feel so light-headed and woozy and faint? 

_What's happening to me?_

"So I buzzed one last time and—"

"Did it scare you?"

"What?"

"The buzzer," Eren says, his voice a mere flake above a whisper. Soft. Like powdered snow. "Did it scare you?"

Mikasa gawks at him. By the troubled expression on her face, Eren thinks she'll definitely leave now. He can already see her vanishing, and part of him surrenders, accepts his grim fate. But then… but then, Mikasa she…

She laughs.

She _laughs_ and Eren's spirit kindles at the sound of it.

"Yes," she says bashfully. "Yeah, it really scared me."

A smile tugs at Erens lips. He tries to fight it, but it proves to be too strong, so he relents, beaming so brightly Mikasa can’t help but smile.

She's careful, though. She looks away.

"It's loud, isn't it?" he says.

"So loud, though."

Eren chuckles. His hands unclench over the counter top, floating over to his upper arms, where he holds himself and rubs circles on the skin of his biceps with his thumbs. She studies him for a while, eyeing the tiny scars on his arms, scars she doesn’t remember ever seeing there before. Scars that worry her, make her question why? How? Who did that to him?

"Anyways..." she's the one to say, and she can't help feeling that the air around them has grown thinner, somewhat easier to breathe. She pulls the stool back, lifts her foot off the ground and climbs back onto it. Like if somebody were pushing her to do it, she's driven to comply; not bothering to question the spectral, internal nudge. Because there's just something about this place. A presence stands sturdy among the walls, like it's been living here forever.

Eren watches as she goes to sit back down.

There's a noise.

There's the screech of wood on wood, that comforting click of her heels on his floor.

There's silence.

There's the tremor in her body and the shaky manner in which she holds her foot in the appropriate place, her hand supporting her weight to mount the chair that's suddenly grown taller, an obstacle.

She knows.

With every part of her, Mikasa knows: this is a mistake. A big mistake.

Yet she sits anyway, removes her purse from her shoulder and reclaims her spot by her end of the island, right across from the wild-haired, green-and-blue-eyed man with golden flakes speckled across his irises. Eren sees her slump her handbag over the counter top, and it sags in its own weight. The gilded Prada lettering on it gleams in the light, and it's so damn expensive, so grand, so irrational.

Like her ring.

"So I pressed the buzzer twice," she continues. "The second time, nothing happened again, so I stood outside in the snow for a while. But then..." 

Eren prompts for more. "But then…?"

Mikasa sighs, shaking her head. "Okay. This is where it gets really weird."

“Okay," he says, bringing his cup to his lips. Mikasa sees him take a sip before setting the mug back down on the counter top. The liquid inside is a pale shade of brown, no doubt violated by questionable amounts of cream and sugar.

Mikasa clears her throat. Right.

"So, um, yeah. So then, the door—literally, the door just… opened. It opened out of nowhere."

"Are you serious?" Eren anchors his hands over the edge of the counter top, arms stretched inside out so that his elbows face him and the protruding veins traveling along his inner forearms face Mikasa.

Oh, for the love of God.

She forces down a timid gulp of hot chocolate, ripping her eyes away. _Don't stare at him. Don't stare at him. Don't—_ "Yeah," she breathes, fixing her eyes on a stack of books piled up against the wall beside her. "I'm not kidding."

Eren's frowns at her. She doesn't see this. "You mean, the thing just opened by itself?"

"Yup."

"That's odd."

Her gaze drops, defeated. "I told you you wouldn't believe me."

"No, no. It's just…" He rubs the back of his neck, following her line of vision, staring at his own piled-up stack of old books. "How could a door so heavy just open by itself?"

Mikasa shrugs, forcing herself to look at him, swigging down another gulp of her rapidly-dwindling drink. Her snout is hidden inside the mug, so that the only things peeking out at him are her gigantic eyes. Her lashes flutter as she blinks, shrugs. "I dunno," and there's a hollowness to her voice, an echo within the mug.

"Hmm," is all Eren answers.

And he waits.

Waits and watches as she takes a long sip and then licks some whipped cream off the tippy top of her mouth, where her upper lip curves up into that glorious little cupid's bow. And the way she licks the whipped cream off reminds him of how she was when she was little. The Prada purse slumped over his island reminds him she's not that little girl anymore, though.

She just looks at him. With those wide, perfect eyes.

"I thought—" Her voice is raspy when she speaks again, a consequence of the hot chocolate. "I thought that maybe there's some weird high-tech thingy in this building or something. You know, that lets people open the front door with a button?"

Eren snorts. "Nah, there's nothing like that here."

"No?"

"No. This building's old. Like, _old_. It's a miracle it hasn't fallen apart yet."

"But then… How did…?"

"Beats me," he chimes, shrugging, trying not to look at the bead of hot chocolate clinging to her lip. "I mean, the buzzers are messed up. Hitch and Sash got the names mixed up one night when they were drunk so maybe you weren't even pressing the right one. But the door just opening by itself? I've never heard of that happening before."

"There was no one there when I peeked inside," she adds, tracing a dark vein in the wooden counter top with her vision. "The thing literally just... opened up for me."

Eren shrugs again, his shoulders going up so high they press against his ears. "I dunno. I don't know what to tell you. That's never happened here, as far as I know."

Mikasa shakes her head incredulously, the bead of hot chocolate still glowing on her bottom lip. "But that's… That's so weird."

Eren nods, scoffing. "Yeah."

"How can a door just…?"

"No idea."

"It's odd."

"Yep!"

"I'm so confused."

"Yep."

She holds a hand to her forehead, heaving out a breath. "Wow."

"I know," and Eren knocks back another swig of his coffee, just to force his own eyes off of her, and with a daunting flash he realizes that there's no more.

Before Mikasa can speak again, Eren turns around and waltzes over to the coffee maker, all the while feeling her eyes on his back like pin needles pricking him through his clothes.

She's watching him.

"So doors just open up in your presence, huh?" There's a pause as he reaches for the coffee pot. "You know what this means, don't you?"

"No, I don't," Mikasa says, her voice suddenly very fluffy. He turns around, finds her looking at him. She's genuinely waiting for his answer.

A dainty smile twinkles on his mouth, and Mikasa can already tell where he's going with this. Her face is quickly falling flat before he even starts to whisper:

"You're the chosen one."

Viewing the way his eyebrows raise dramatically and his fingers twiddle in the air, her eyes squint down to coin slots. Her voice is toneless when she drones, with equal caustic fervor:

"You're an idiot."

And you would've thought she'd given him the greatest compliment. The smile he gives her is so bright, the impossible dimple by the corner of his mouth flaring. 

"I'll get someone to check it out. Maybe the door's broken or something, I dunno."

"Wait. You believe me?"

She sounds genuinely surprised, which makes Eren smirk to himself. He doesn't know she's gaping at the backside of his dark green T-shirt and watching the way his back muscles move underneath it as he shrugs.

"Well, I mean, yeah," and he says this casually, as if doors magically opening up by themselves were the most natural thing in the world. "Of course I do, Mikasa."

"But—" She's quiet for a second. "But, why?"

The way he turns around then, the way he looks at her, it's as if to say that he'd be foolish not to. It's a highly improbable story—Mikasa can hardly believe it herself. And yet there's Eren staring at her with those green eyes carved from all the honesty in the world and he's telling her, "Well, you're here aren't you?"

And the question makes her hesitate. It makes her stop and breathe and hesitate because, "Yes. Yes, I am."

And then Eren's smiling again, unveiling that pearly row of straight teeth, that blinding dimple that sometimes makes her dizzy and that sparkling shimmer—that tremulous light glinting in his eyes.

Fucking hell.

"Anyways." Eren swivels around in his heels to reclaim his spot by the island. Steam wafts off his mug like smoke rising from a pan. He puckers his lips to blow at it, and the wisps of smoke undulate away from him, swaying forth like waves fleeing from his mouth.

Mikasa quickly diverts her gaze down to her hands.

"So how have you been?"

Caught off guard, she looks at him, realizing that it's been a very long time since she last heard those words. She's forgotten how to answer, it seems. She glances up at the ceiling, at the ground, at the cup of coffee in his hands, at the steam that still rises, at his wispy, messy locks of brown—

Nope. Don’t look at that.

"Good," she says eventually, deciding that answer should suffice. "And you?"

“Wonderful."

"Oh, that's nice."

He props his elbows on the countertop again, leaning in so close that Mikasa catches another whiff of his earthy, citrusy scent. His lashes are drawn heavily over his eyes, flitting subtly as he blinks and ponders.

"Ssssoooooo..." he drags the word out heavily. The constellations of gold in his irises glow as he peers up at her, stars that twinkle in the eternal green night of his eyes. "And how's your fiancé doing?"

"Hmm?"

He nods at her ring before sipping some more of his coffee. "Your fiancé. How is he?”

"He's great!" she gushes out, hardly breathing in the process.

"That's good."

"Mhm."

The silence that follows only lasts a second, for Mikasa's quickly taking in a breath to disrupt its discomforting presence.

"He's uh… He's at work right now."

"Oh." Eren's brows raise to the top of his head. "On a Sunday?"

He sees the way her eyes wince, clings to the nuance that dips in her tone when she answers, "Yes..."

"That's very interesting." A sip. Studious. "Does he always work on Sundays?"

"Not always, no."

"Hmm." His eyes ascend to meet her, then adapt a gradual descend down the features of her face, absorbing every curve and shape and point, searching every corner and crevice for a hint of disappointment or frustration but finding nothing. Her expression is cool as stone.

Still, Eren keeps on pushing.

"That's a nice ring," he adds, watching the way she perks up at the comment.

"Oh, thank you," she smiles politely, but offers nothing more.

He watches her, taking another long gulp, eyeing the pointy tip of her nose, the careful arches of her brows, her fair milky complexion and thinking of how once, she used to remind him of the very seasons. Today, she's winter. Her face is so pure and white, the pink pads of her lips like petals fallen to the snow, specks of her lip gloss glistening like frozen morning dew.

Eren wonders if this fiancé of hers ever bothers to swoon over these simple features, to marvel at the effortless perfection of his future wife. If he doesn't, he decides, then the guy's an idiot.

"It's... like, huge." The ring, he means.

"I know."

"How long?"

"How long have we been engaged?"

"Mmmhhmmm."

"Oh. Uh, almost a month?"

"'Almost'?"

"Huh?"

" _Almost_ a month?"

"Oh. Uh, yeah." She clears her throat, glancing at her ring. The topic clearly makes her uncomfortable. But why? "Yes. A month. We've been engaged for about a month now."

"Really?" Eren scratches the corner of his eye. "Wow."

"Yeah," she says. Something tells him that he should stop now, that he shouldn't keep prodding her like this.

Still, he pushes.

"That's not so long, you know… Only a month."

Mikasa shakes her head, taking a deep breath. He watches the way her chest expands at the inhale, how it rises before it falls again. "Yeah, no. It's not. We only dated for two years or so before that."

"Two years?"

"Mhm."

"Interesting."

"And you?"

He smiles, one of his hands drifting over to hold his upper arm. "And me what?"

"What about your…" she starts, but soon drops her gaze. Her lashes are heavy and dense, those damn awnings that hang over her face and practically cast a shadow across her features. Eren's smile only broadens when she looks at him. Her voice is soft, so soft that it tickles when she whispers, "Oh, you know..."

Eren finishes for her. "Love life?"

Mikasa chuckles. He would've thought it sounded nervous if it didn't make him feel so at ease with himself instead. 

"Sure," she gives.

He’s quiet before her, momentarily lost in his own coffee-sipping trance. She stares as a wad of coffee travels down his throat, how his broad shoulders grow even wider when he ingests a large clump of air. "It's interesting enough," he shrugs dismissively, but the mug he brings up to his mouth is quickly bolting away from him when he adds, almost corrects, "I mean, I have a girlfriend."

"Oh?" Mikasa’s genuinely taken aback by his answer. "Really?"

Eren only shrugs again, not giving anything more than a simple and altogether-bland "Yup."

Mikasa plants her eyes on him. Is he lying? His hair is so long that it covers the tips of his ears, so she' can’t see if they're burning red like they always do when he's being untruthful. 

She can't help herself. She's curious now.

"Is it…?" She motions to the door, and it takes Eren a few jaded seconds to realize who she's talking about.

"You mean, is it Hitch?"

She nods, a bit sheepish, jumping at the loud snort that erupts out of his nose. Eren's face contorts into a grimace.

"Oh, no. No way."

"No?"

" No. Oh, God. Hell no."

"But—" Mikasa frowns. "But, then why…?" She seems perplexed, a coy thumb rising up to point to the door and she's genuinely puzzled, trying to piece it all together: the hickeys, the splayed sheets atop his bed, the way she wore his shirt? Hello? Because why is he sleeping with her if he's not—

Oh.

OH.

Suddenly, her head clears with understanding. Eren tries not to laugh at her perturbed expression, at the faint blush appearing on her cheeks. Mikasa's eyes are wide, staring off into the distance, and there's a hint of horror in her face.

Okay, Eren's having a lot of trouble holding in his laughter now.

"Oh. Wow."

"Indeed," he chokes.

"I…" Her eyes reach up to the ceiling, looking for consolation, repentance. "I see."

"Yeah."

"That's just… Huh."

Eren shakes his head, smirking. "Yeah, no. It's not like that with Hitch."

Mikasa squints her eyes at him, his words shooting around like torpedoes in her head. 

Her eyes narrow even more.

She understands.

_It's not like that with Hitch._

Translation: "We just fuck."

Revised translation: "We just fuck even though I have a girlfriend."

Re-revised translation: "We just fuck even though I have a girlfriend because _I cheat on her sometimes."_

Eren draws his mug up to his lips, offering a guilty shrug of his shoulders, some strands of his hair falling over his eyes. And he just keeps on smirking. At himself, at the glorious accomplishments of his love life. He runs a hand through his hair, the smirk on his mouth cracking open to reveal his dimple. He smiles at her.

Mikasa forces down the last bit of hot chocolate in one long gulp, mostly just to ease the sudden tension in the air. But it doesn't work. She's shaken. 

Seriously, just— Is he serious? He's got a girlfriend and another girl on the side! What the crap is that? Since when is he even like this? Never, never in a million years would Mikasa even fathom such a thing. Having a partner _and_ a fuck buddy? It just makes no sense. Preposterous!

And then, suddenly—

Mikasa explodes.

She starts laughing, and it's fruity. Loud.

Amazing.

An exclamatory burst that makes Eren jump, surprised by the way she goes into a frenzy of breathless chortles and nearly keels over the counter in tears.

She slaps a hand across her mouth, trying not to laugh even harder at the way he holds a hand to his chest, baffled, his mouth agape in his amazement.

She chokes a little, removing her hand from her mouth to apologize in small, hasty whispers. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" and Eren sighs, seriously at war with himself not to crack into a smile at the way she giggles, covering her mouth, breathing out her pretty little words. "Oh, I didn't mean to laugh! It's just—"

"It's fi—" 

Mikasa's breaking into laughter again, her eyes disappearing into her face. She holds a hand to her tummy, nearly falling off the damn chair, cackling like she's just heard the funniest joke in her entire life. Jesus Christ. Eren scoffs, shaking his head, astonished. Jesus Christ.

He almost can't believe the sight before him. She's laughing so hard! He hasn't seen her like this before—not in ages. He doesn't even know how to react. To be honest, he's even starting to get a little worried.

"Um, Mikasa?"

"I just— I just—" She can't talk. She's laughing so hard she's practically wheezing, the poor woman. "I'm so sorry, oh my God. So sorry, Eren, I just—"

She balls her fists over the island, falling forward like a drunk, her shoulders shaking with every suppressed snigger as she lets her head wilt in between her arms in defeat, hiding the blissful expression of her laughter twisting up her face. Eren goggles at the back of her neck as she trembles for a few seconds, giggling and snorting like a little girl.

He knows she does this when she’s extremely nervous, when she has to find things funny to cope. But he still can’t understand this.

"Jesus," he breathes after a moment. "What is wrong with you?"

She starts laughing again. And then, he can't fight it, he does too. She's cackling like she's crazy. He's chuckling nervously like he's scared. This woman seriously has the most concerning sense of humor. It's incredible.

A few moments later, Mikasa falls back into her seat, breathless. "I can't. I’m sorry." She shakes her head, covering her face with her hands, hiding the childish blush that has spread across her cheeks.

He's the one that's breathless now, blown away by how beautiful she is, by how freely she's giggling and smiling, by the little charcoal-colored strands that have fallen out of her bun and her chipped nail polish and her chest and by the way it heaves and bloats and shakes and just— 

Wow.

Mikasa takes a few deep breaths, recomposing herself, bringing a hand down to her heart, holding the other to her cheek, clearly surprised by herself. Her chest rises and falls in between her sighs, in between every blissful inhale and exhale and whispered apology. "I'm sorry, Eren."

"Don't apologize," he tells her, and he's pretty fucking confident his cheeks are burning cherry-red right about now.

He sees her re-adjust her shirt, which has rucked over her shoulders and rolled up by the sleeves, wallowing in the scratchy sounds of her nails scraping her arms and ribs over the black cotton fabric. Her collarbones are punctuated, peeking out of her skin. And, it may just be the fact that black is slimming or something like that, but her arms look really lanky, all of a sudden. And now that he notices… so do her hands. And her fingers. And her face. And her neck looks... longer. Thinner?

Wait.

He feels a prickle in his heart.

A very painful one.

Dauntingly, Eren realizes that something's definitely wrong. He blinks at her, her laughter still ringing in his ears, the dark realization of why she seems so small and fragile to him punching him square in the face. He blinks again. All her giggles dissipate to nothing once he realizes:

Mikasa's lost weight.

And a lot of it.

Even her breasts look smaller. The curves drawn around their swells are smoother, not as full, not as round. Like the juice has been sucked out of her. Like the fullness that once filled her points and edges has been squeezed right out.

He doesn't get it. Why is she suddenly so small now? So thin? A grand, fierce assembly of a woman, dwindled to a feeble girl with thin fingers and lanky arms.

There's another prickle. A stab.

Eren's distress burgeons.

Her fiancé. 

Why has he let her grow this frail? Does he not realize she's not meant to be this way? Does he not notice the way her cheekbones poke out of her skin? That her arms shouldn't look like noodles? It's all so wrong. So wrong, so wrong, and he doesn't understand it. How come he's only noticing this now, too? How come he didn't notice this the very first time he saw her? When she bounced right off him and landed in his arms and looked up at him and said it. His name. She'd brought him back to life again.

She's so different. He can't help it. He can't stop.

Suddenly, he sees.

Him.

Her.

The night she left him.

How she'd looked then, how she looks now, how they're total opposites.

She's so distant now. So distant that he's scared that if he reaches out to touch her, he'll find nothing. A specter. The haunting dread of his fingers passing right through her. But the girl from that night had been so vivid, so real—his entirely. She'd smiled like this. She'd laughed just like that. She's turned that brilliant shade of red from her giggles and from—

The thoughts come.

He's taken back. Swallowed into a vortex. Spat right back out into his past.

It all happens in an instant.

Suddenly, irrevocably, Eren only sees—

_— Mikasa._

_Perfect, so perfect, shaking underneath him, splayed open on his bed, bared in all her vulnerability. Saying that she loved him, that she'd never leave, that she'd stay with him forever. A promise. Her vow:_

_"Always, Eren. I'll always be with you."_

_She'd stabbed the words into his heart, perched them up like a statue. Held them there. Held him._

_Whispers between kisses, messy, mumbled words, declarations of 'I want you' uttered and pronounced, laced with truth and strength and iron, engraved into their skins, their flesh, their backs. A promise painted on the walls of their home, released into the world around them. Declarations that were shouted to the sky, proclaimed out to the heavens: I want you. I'm yours. You're mine. We're together. We have nothing left to fear anymore. Their breaths twirling in the air around them, flowing from their lungs, fueling them and tying them together. Joining them. As one. Half-lidded stares out glazed-over eyes, hands that shook and trembled, that surveyed for each other in the night. That never rested until they found each other and everything was okay._

_They were safe._

_They were home._

_They were together._

Eren gasps, swallowing a thin slice of air.

Oh, no.

This can't be happening. Not now. Not now.

He closes his eyes.

His chest hurts.

He can't see. He can't see anything but—

_—The moonlight._

_So vibrant, so alive, throbbing with colors and scents and pooling on her skin, glistening like silver on her sweat. The entirety of her existence—so ethereal, so angelical, far too much than what he'll ever deserve. The milky smoothness of her face, the tautness of her thighs, the familiarity of her smell, her warmth. His sanctuary. The haven hidden in her arms, blossoming like flowers that burgeoned all around him. A garden. In her sighs the very colors of his life. The muscles that clenched and unclenched as they rode to a crescendo, that coiled all throughout as they reached their peaks._

_Once._

_Twice._

_Three times over._

_He could make love to her forever. He swore, he swore, he swore. Eren promised himself that he would. Love her. Keep her. Cherish her until the end of his days. With every breath and palpitation, with every beat within his chest, with every ounce of his being._

_Till death._

_Till death do them part._

Shit.

Oh, shit.

He's feeling sick.

Mikasa's clueless to what's happening to him.

She stares at the snow falling outside. He thinks he can see the flakes reflected in her irises. And there's a smile on her lips, a faraway look in her eyes, the snowflakes melting into the black pools of her irises. She isn't looking at him.

He can't breathe.

He's clobbered by the way she says—

_—His name._

_Sobbed into his shoulder, grazed onto his skin with her teeth, breaking free to arch back, to be gasped. She'd felt so strong, so welcoming, so amazing, so pure. His home. The sole purpose of his life. Her promise, floating around them in the dense, panted air. Always. Always._

_Always._

_I will always be with you._

_He was so sure. So sure, so sure. She promised him. The truth weighed heavily in his bones, bubbling up the surface of his skin, boiling like water that evaporated into the stutters that formed at the tops of his lungs. The truth. She never lied to him. Never._

_Mikasa wouldn't lie._

_Not to him._

_She wouldn't._

_He was so sure. So sure, so sure._

_The entire night etched itself into his brain: the stars, the moon, the pillows thrown right off the bed. All little things that hung over his head on strings. Never to be forgotten, never to let him rest. He'd be haunted by their plague, by the tragedy of that night._ _The beauty._ _The saltiness of her sweat on his tongue. The taste of her lips, her neck, her belly. The shapes of her breasts, their fullness; how they'd filled his hands, his mouth, his eyes. Constants. Things about her that would never change. He'd memorized her shape entirely, her curves, learned the dips and slopes and edges of her body. So much so that he would be able to find them blindingly in the night with his eyes closed; feel her breath against his neck and catch the quiver of her skin and know he'd found a sweet spot, a tender point in her he craved._

Mikasa's smiling. Still.

Scratching her shoulder.

Shaking her head.

Smiling.

Eren's hit with how she looked back then, how she'd felt, and it's suddenly become much harder not to see right through her clothes. Not to think of how she'd tasted, how she'd smelled. Of currants and raspberries. Ancient, inexplicable Mikasa. Ancient and old and his.

The images in his head only worsen. A torrent. He stands helpless as it comes and takes him, crashes into him, pulls him in, drags him under.

He's swept off.

Submerged.

He looks away from her.

Helpless. So helpless.

He looks away.

_She'd looked so right._

_Everything about her had been so right that night, the only right in his world of constant wrongs._

_There had been her skin, plucking over with goosebumps under his touch. He had been gentle, he had taken his time. Clothes fell off their bodies in layers, barricades that fell bit by bit, barriers that crumbled only gradually, not all at once. They shed their worries off along with their garments, until the only thing left between them was her skin, her panties, and a navy-colored bra. Her eyes had sparked with tenderness and love, an eternal care for him. The little smile she'd given him when his fingers tickled on her back had granted him permission, told him it was okay, to keep going. His stomach clenched, suddenly nervous._

_They hadn't done this in so long._

_Her voice was airy, small sighs that passed through her lips as he slipped off what was left on her. First, it had been her bra: a cheap, simple thing she'd owned since High School. It was small on her now, her breasts practically spilled out of the cups. He'd kissed their overflowing swells as he worked on the fastenings, thought of how they'd grown much bigger in the past few months so that most of her shirts fit her uncomfortably and he would hear curse under her breath a little more than usual, which wasn't much to begin with. He'd spent days relishing the sight of her, watching in amusement as she struggled to stuff them in "these damned, stupid things!" she called her bras. She was always fretting over their size. They made her life impossible, got in the way of everything and made the perverts stare. She rushed and raced to hide them, said she couldn't understand why they still wouldn't go away. The words had scratched him at the back of his head, reminded him of their loss, of violent shakes to wake him in the middle of the night and streaks of blood staining the bed sheets. The terrible look on her face when—_

Stop.

Please.

His eyes scrunch shut, the adrenaline pumping in his body all at once, spurring and mixing and burning and hissing and—

He opens his eyes.

Sees her.

He's not looking at her. 

And yet he sees her.

How?

Are her eyes fixed on him?

Is she watching him?

He hopes not. He hopes.

It all gets worse.

So much worse.

He's a coward. He doesn't look at her. He can't bring himself to meet—

_—Her eyes._

_Staring at him as he flung the worn-out little thing to the side, useless piece of clothing to be retrieved later. And they'd done that so many times before. Their clothes had flown across countless rooms, landed over countless floors, fell around them in their passion and yet there she was, lying on her back with her arms thrown above her head, looking at him, smiling, and Eren was still unsure of whether what he saw breathing right in front of him was actually real or not. She had such an amazing smile. A smile made for the gods._

_And it made her look so young to him, all of a sudden. Fifteen, sixteen. Not nineteen._ _Not anymore._

_He watched her breathe._

_Her chest, bare now, rose and fell in a slow cadence. Perfect, gentle breaths puffing out her lips, nervous little glances shot his way as he surveyed her with his eyes, admiring her neck and chest and collarbones and the pinkness blooming in her cheeks, flushing, and her lips, trapped between her teeth in nervousness—and before he knew it, he was touching her, feeling her breathe under his fingertips, running his thumb across her bottom lip and holding his breath as she kissed it, as his fingers ventured lower and reached the space right between her breasts._

_He leaned in, landing one kiss—one, chaste—to the skin there, feeling her sigh for a moment before pulling back just to look at her, to absorb the exquisite sight of her face, of the bosoms that had increased in size along with other specific parts of her, things about herself she'd grown to hate but that only made him love her even more. He thought with delight of what she'd do right then if he told her, smirked at her and told her she'd grown a great pair of tits. Probably ram her fist into his mouth, he figured—he'd already seen her rip a bra in half in her rage a few nights before. He stared at her, stared at her. Stared at his gorgeous, incredible wife and felt a part of himself die at the ethereal light radiating off her; so placid and serene were her splendid little breaths and her nipples were perked and pink and he was so madly in love with her, so fucking deep in crazy stupid love with her it was nuts._

_He hadn't taken her immediately, instead just marveled, watched, felt himself go painfully hard at the sight of her, his teeth stabbing into his bottom lip, just like hers, but for a whole different reason. Mikasa had laughed, a breath, covering her face in her embarrassment. He'd captured her hands, kissed them, looked at the black, forever-chipping nail polish of her nails and the scratch below her eye and told her she was beautiful. She'd turned a little red. He'd told her that he meant it. With all his heart, meant it. It never took much to remind him she was the most beautiful woman in the entire world._

_She'd looked at him, smirking, waiting for his move. A challenge. He loved those. He loved when she looked at him like that. He'd started on her face, planting kisses on each one of her features. Her forehead, her nose, her eyelids, her chin. He'd lingered by her lips, nipped at them and heard her hum, licked her cheek and heard her giggle._

_"What the heck?" she'd laughed, the greatest sound in the whole universe right there. Her laugh._

_"I thought you liked it when I licked you," was his response. He'd bit his lip again, smiling at the way she wiped her cheek with the back of her hand and rolled her eyes at him._

_"Yeah." And she'd turned a little redder. "But not there."_

_"Oh. I'm sorry. Where, then?"_

_Another gorgeous sound. She groaned at him in frustration._

_It made him titter like a fool._

_There were the careful seconds spent admiring her, his attention loitering for a while on the spaces just around her lips. They had time. They had time. Time stood still when they were kissing. The earth stopped spinning when his mouth reached south. The air grew thinner when a gasp from her lips held his right in place, just above the pulse point of her neck. It didn't take long before they were ghosting over the curves of her shoulders, hands lightly working up her sides, feeling how soft and smooth and warm she was. A little prelude to what was ahead was the patient way she watched him, while naughty thoughts danced in his mind and he contemplated all the different ways to have her. She'd bitten her lip in anticipation when there was no more skin left on her chest for him to rediscover, when what was next was, hopefully, his paying attention to something else._

_She'd watched in silence as he placed his mouth over her right breast and held it just above the peak, opening it slowly, breath all hot and enticing on her nipple, tongue reaching out to touch her but—_

_He stopped, looked up at her, smiled._

_Mikasa groaned again._

_Her breath hitched when he kissed her, though, right there, on the point of her peak. But he told her to have patience, that they had time. He told her—kissing the other one as well—that they had time, they had time, they had time._

_Time._

_Somehow, he had ignored the notion that perhaps she knew better._

_Neither of them said anything more, because then came her panties: white and flimsy, a pink little bow adorning the waistline, tiny red hearts dotted all over the fabric; cute designs that had Eren smiling to himself again. He chuckled once he recognized them. He'd only seen her wear them once before._

_When he'd pointed them out to her, she'd covered her face again, told him to "just take them off already" and "stop, no, don't stare at them, don't". He'd kissed her lips for the twentieth time, snorting at how embarrassed she was that he'd caught her wearing mismatched underwear, like he actually gave a shit about that kind of stuff._

_"I didn't know you still owned these."_

_"Shut up."_

_"They're cute."_

_"Stop."_

_"I like them."_

_"You're just saying that 'cause they're what I wore the first time we—"_

_A gasp from her own lips interrupted her as he slid his fingers down the front of them, red, tiny hearts swimming and bulging around the sudden intrusion of his hand. Her eyes fluttered shut, mouth flew open, face morphed into that angelical expression that made every part of him melt._

_He smirked, forever finishing her sentences. "Had sex?"_

_"Mhm."_

_"So?" His hand hardly moved against her, but her hips were already hasty and impatient, urging him to move a little more, a little faster. She opened her eyes in her frustration. He still wouldn't budge. "What's wrong with that?"_

_She slunk her hand right over his to marionette his movements. For a moment, he let her. He let her move his hand against her just the way she wanted, just to see her close her eyes and stretch her neck back and sigh. He saw her throat bob as she swallowed, then he moved his fingers a bit more, completely on his own, watching her chest heave with deeper breaths. Her hips ground up to meet him, to rub him more against her, to feel him more and more and more. A foreign kind of desperation. He'd never seen it on her before._

_He didn't bother questioning it, either._

_Her voice was raspy when she spoke again, threatening to turn into the moan that grew tighter inside her. Eren smiled real fucking bright at that, even more so when her words came out all laced wonderfully with pants._

_"So your opinion… is unfortunately… invalid."_

_"Invalid?"_

_"Yea-up."_

_Eren's grin only broadened. His eyes were green and blue and wicked. "Oh, that's not fair."_

_"It's—"_

_He pressed his hand to her sensitive spot. Pressed hard. Had her cursing out and gasping. He couldn't help but relish in that. Hearing her curse was like witnessing an oddity. An oddity he'd learned to love—especially if his name followed._

_"F-fuck, Eren."_

_"What?"_

_"Stop it."_

_"Stop what?"_

_"Stop teasing me."_

_"Am not."_

_"Oh, you really—"_

_He did it again._

_He had her gasping louder, covering her mouth, blushing furiously. "I'm sorry, what was that?" The smile on him was positively evil. He saw her eyes snap open, glaring at him, her cheeks splattered with blotches of deep crimson and lips bruised from all their kissing and all her biting._

_His dimple flashed._

_She scowled at him._

_"I hate you."_

_"Oh?"_

_"I—"_

_He slipped a single finger inside her, licked his lips at the way she arched and forgot everything she was just about to say. His voice was a lot thicker all of a sudden, syrupy and oozing into her ear as he leaned in close—real, real close—to taunt her._

_"Say that again."_

_She pressed the words to his neck, pressed them hard so he would hear her._

_"I. Hate. You."_

_But the way she hummed and smirked at him all begged to differ. Still, he slipped his finger right out, and she looked at him, surprised, her lips parting to protest but then he'd given her more. He pushed both his middle and ring finger inside her and ground his palm against her clit, watching her slump back and sink into the bed with her mouth blown wide open like she didn't know whether to gasp or moan or scream or what. His fingers moved deftly within her, pumping, curling, teasing her in the most beautiful of ways. They moved and he rubbed and they moved until he was pulling groans out of her like flowers from a field. Soon, his name was being breathed and bitten back to be contained inside her mouth._

_He couldn't help it._

_He couldn't help but stare, couldn't bring himself to look away from her. His gaze was cemented to her face. He watched her. Watched her squirm and wilt and wither underneath him. He'd never seen anything look so fucking perfect as it fell apart. He loved being the only one who ever got to see her that way, the only man in the entire world who ever had. Her first. Her only._

_Despite her noises, the world around them was completely still. There was such abyssal silence outside their home that it was as if the entire world had quieted in reverence, as if the universe had agreed to halt the course of all living things, stop everything. Just for them. Just so that the night could be eternal—and it felt like it was. It felt like it would never end. There was nothing but him, her, the noises she emitted._

_And the words that fell right out of his mouth._

_"I love you, though."_

_They spilled clumsily and fervently, gushing out like too much water held inside too little space. But still, Eren felt no shame in pronouncing them. He felt no shame in uttering his purpose, his truth._

_And then, slowly, Mikasa opened her eyes. Hazy, sleepy eyelids slid open, looking at him. Still panting, still red, her lips frozen around his name… she looked at him. Just looked at him._

_He smoothed her hair back with his free hand, tucking some silken locks behind her ear, saying the words again; saying them loud and clear so she would hear him._

_"I love you, Mikasa."_

_And then, slowly, she smiled at him. The silence around them was so intense that it was loud. So intense that one might hear the tremulous light of the stars, feel their crying and their buzzing and their ancient millennium songs. Stories made from years that can't be fathomed and yet all were felt within their hearts, because their love was that tremendous. With such passion he admired her. With such splendor she smiled at him._

_He'd never forget how she gasped and beamed and told him, all breathless and red and spectacular:_

_"I do, too."_

_I do, too._

_He held his forehead to hers, clammy and sticky with sweat but he didn't care. Strands of his hair stuck to her skin, his mouth just adjacent to hers and he whispered, "Stay with me."_

_Her promise had been quick. "Always."_

_Eren sighed. He sighed in bliss and relief and happiness, but also in pain and dread and doubt. He kissed her lips, breathed them in, inhaled her scent and respired deeply against her._

_"Say that again."_

_"Always, Eren. I will always be with you."_

Make it stop.

Please, God, make it stop.

The thoughts.

They won't end. They won't leave him. They won't stop.

In front of him, Mikasa bites back another giggle.

Eren wants to scream.

To press his hands to his ears, to stop all the memories from getting worse but they come prowling, they come screaming, ear-splitting screeches that hit him all at once. He can't stop them. 

They take him.

Eat him up.

He wants to scream.

To cry.

Let it end. Let it end. Make it stop, please, let it end.

The girl holds a hand up to her chest, sighing, breathing out his name.

"Oh, Eren."

She's killing him.

She's killing him.

_He'd never felt so alive._

_His mouth had reached down past her navel, kissing the little pink bow on her panties, tracing some of the tiny red hearts with the tip of his tongue. He heard her scoff and giggle, body trembling underneath him as she laughed. He didn't say another word. He didn't even look back up at her._

_Instead, he pressed his tongue against her, right there on her center, to that spot that made her weak and kissed her through her clothes. Kissed her once, twice—just a bit lower—and then just that was enough, just that was enough to make her shiver. He took in that smell that was purely Mikasa, her panties rich with her scent, inexplicable and perfect and mixed with a tinge of sweetness from the lotion on her skin. Soon, his desire for her was overtaking him. He'd felt the heat pooling in his abdomen, her fingers gliding through his hair, the attentive way she watched him and known that she was waiting. Overwhelmed, he couldn't stop. His body thirsted and ached, his hands grew cold and greedy. He wanted her. He wanted her. He wanted her._

_So he took her underwear right off her in a flash, in a moment kissed his way up her one leg, and before she knew it he'd flung it over his shoulder and entered her all nice and rough. She'd been shocked into such a state of euphoria, staring at him with her wide, inky eyes and gasping once she felt how deep he'd gone inside her with just his first thrust; going even deeper when he pushed her leg up by her thigh and gave his second, his third, shifting his weight forward so that his fourth filled her completely and then they were both crying out, they were both closing their eyes and dissolving into the sweet rapture of becoming one, making up for lost time together by making love. They clung feverishly to one another, held on tightly like they would both disappear if they didn't hold on tight enough, and then everything would end._

_A gust of wind entered the room then, cool whispers that flew in from the open window and blew quietly on their skins. Soon, drops of him were landing on her, and she'd felt his sweat mixing with her own, felt it fuse and form into the sweet, musky scent of their love making. When it came to him, when it came to this, she would worship every single droplet that fell off onto her. There had been times when those had been tears. There had been times when it was blood that spattered on them instead of salt water. Together, they seemed to share the best and worst times of their lives. But that night, it had been his love that dribbled onto her, and with every fragment and shard and broken, chipped-off piece of herself, Mikasa accepted each and every drop. Eventually, those had seeped through her skin and flowed into her veins like affluent water. They'd coiled at her nerves, turned to rivers and to waves. Soon, they were both deluged with one another, inundated by their bliss. Where crimson streaks had once stained, their love now thrived and blossomed. He pushed her leg up even more, held himself against her and went a little deeper, so that the same hue of red that had once haunted them now bloomed on her lips and cheeks like a rose, petals that slipped out of her mouth as she panted and heaved, as she flourished and reached her peak._

_What once was cruel was now very beautiful._

_That's just what the world was like when she was with him._

_Once that was over, he slid her leg off his shoulder, slipped out of her carefully, and let his arms collapse from the exhaustion. He summoned just another ounce of strength, just to kiss his way down her centerfold and rest his head atop her stomach, where he finally allowed himself to fall. His weight settled on top of her. She didn't complain. She held him. He found refuge in her arms._

_Eren closed his eyes and felt her belly rise and fall beneath him, swaying as she breathed. He never noticed she was crying. He never figured out why, but she was._

_In the silence, Mikasa wept._

_She wept._

_And he was clueless._

_Clueless._

_They regained their strength shortly after, and then her hands were roving up and down his upper back, his shoulder blades, cupping his face and bringing it up so he would look at her._

_"I want you," she said, brushing off the sweaty strands of hair that stuck to his forehead. She didn't let him see that her eyes were red. She'd looked down and taken his right hand in hers to trace the scar across his palm with her finger, and it looked so small, her little finger, small and delicate and cute over the coarse, healed slit of his old wound. Her hands always looked so tiny next to his, despite how strong they were._

_He couldn't help feeling that something was different with her that night. Wrong._

_"You're not tired?"_

_"Not tonight."_

_She spoke without looking at him, tracing the scar over and over, adoring it with her eyes, admiring it with a sweetness and affection she only had for him. She told him again, just low enough under her breath so that he barely heard her._

_"I want you."_

_I want you._

_And then she'd kissed it, that ugly thing that held so many of his nightmares, kissed it and caressed it with her lips. They were petaly and fragile, reverent kisses pressed to his broken skin until another part of her body replaced her mouth and she was guiding his hand across her chest, guiding it until she filled his palm and held it snug and warm against her. If only for a moment, Mikasa had erased the scar right off his skin. She'd slid her fingers in between the spaces of his knuckles and moved his hand in a way that made him close his eyes and feel her, close his eyes and hold his scar against her while she made something so sickening and hideous into something mild and serene. It never ceased to amaze him how the girl could always do that, take all his ugly, broken parts and mend them back together, make them whole._

_Soft sighs rose against the silence once he finally gave her what she wanted and took the warm mound that filled his hand and brought it to his mouth. He ran his tongue along the peak and felt her arch, rolled the bud between his teeth and heard her gasping, lapped at it and soon she was raking her fingers through his hair and moaning, and he was reaching south to press his scar against her in a whole new way, slipping it between her legs and relishing in the consequences, listening to her break and curse and fall apart anew. He felt her wetness on his fingers. Felt her need for him in his hand. She was bright and real and breathtaking. She was his. His._

_Then, he swallowed one of her pink buds into his mouth and sucked. The sounds she'd made then were heavenly, like music to his ears. He sucked on her nipple and stroked her until she was squirming too much and he was sure he was done torturing her. Then he'd moved on to the other one, done the same, done her the exact same way for a long while until he decided it was best to let her breathe for a second—but just a second, 'cause soon his head found its place between her legs, and those had found their place over his shoulders, and then those soft moans of hers had turned into a lot, lot more._

_There were the sounds she'd made, low and raspy, soft litanies that spurred him on and kept him going. The way she'd clutched his hair, balled some strands into her fist, pulled tight and keened and sighed and keened a little louder. Louder, louder. Curling her toes over his back, crying out his name like it would save her. Quivering thighs over his shoulders, fingernails dragging along his scalp, Mikasa growing tighter, noisier, weaker and oh so fucking beautiful, so fucking perfect, so fucking right. The sweet tang of her released into his mouth as she came. She broke. He tasted her. All of her. Held her down, drank her in, felt her shake and heard her mewl and whimper until she could take no more, until the bliss was too painful, too much, until the only thing left was to yank him by the hair and beg enough, enough._

_Until the only thing left was to turn him on his back._

_Return the favor._

_Have him be the one breaking underneath her, drawing some obsidian locks into his fist and watching as she sucked him clean, tugging gently and telling her to stop, to usher him back in—he wanted to feel her, needed her to show him that they were both still there, still breathing, still alive._

_She complied._

_He watched._

_Her hand on his chest, holding on for leverage, she lowered herself until she'd taken him in whole. There was a gasp. A tremble. Her hips swaying to a delicate dance of push and pull, eyes glued deliberately to his, never breaking away, never leaving him. They demanded that he watch her, hold his breath, stare on helplessly as she rose and fell and swayed and did whatever she wanted with him. She had him at her mercy, had him crumbling at the palm of her hand. Her silken hair ended just above her shoulders, all wildly pretty and disheveled as some strands fell over her face, sticking to her lips, parted in her ecstasy. Her head tilted back, but not completely—not yet—she still forced his eyes to watch her, held his gaze with hers. She had him splintering and stuttering. Speechless. She always made him into such a mess._

_And then her hand deserted him, leaving his chest in a quest to find his palm, to bring it to the center of her chest and hold it there, make him feel her heartbeat through his scar. To show him that they're complete, they're perfect, they're infinitely alive._

_Ba-dump. Ba-dump._

_That they both deserved to be, no matter how bad they both wished they had perished along with everyone else they'd lost._

_Ba-dump._

_No matter how much they both wished they weren't._

_Ba-dump._

_They were alive._

_Ba-dump._

_They were chipped and frayed and fractured._

_Ba-dump._

_But still very much alive._

_Her heart stopped._

_She brought his hand up to her cheek and held it there, leaning into his touch, closing her eyes and releasing him from her spell. He ran his thumb over the scratch below her eye, watched her take in a breath to say something._

_"I love you," she told him in a whisper._

_"I love you," he told her right back._

_There was not much left to say after that._

_Their language was her dance now, his hands hoisted on her hips, thumbs denting her skin as he gripped tight and bucked up into her and felt himself go far too deep; felt himself go mad and get lost in her, get lost._

_She moved slowly, never wanting their connection to end, trying to stretch out their time together but there just wasn't enough. There wasn't enough for him or her and not enough equity for anything. Soon, the churning hunger in her gut seethed at the unfairness, her muscles screamed and burned. She grew desperate, she moved faster, she pushed frantically for more._

_"Eren..."_

_He bucked up harder. Watched her break._

_"Eren, please."_

_"What?"_

_"Please." She was so far gone, so lost in him completely. Pink and red and sweating, she couldn't even think straight. Her words were sticky and hasty with no spaces in between. "Pleasepleasepleaseplease—"_

_"What, Mikasa?"_

_"I want you to— I want—"_

_He sat up._

_She went dumb at the sudden shift of angle._

_He gripped her arms and pulled her to him, feeling her wrap them safe and secure around his shoulders, snaking themselves around him in her strong viper grip. She hissed in pleasure and pain and desperation, clinging to his skin. He brought his mouth up to her ear—still moving in her—and asked, "What do you want?"_

_"I—"_

_His digits sunk into the dimples on her lower back. She melted against him, mewling into his neck._

_"What, what?"_

_She couldn't speak._

_He slunk his hands down lower and groped her rear, dug his fingers deep into her skin and then lifted her up so that he was half-way out of her. She bit her lip, helpless, resting her hands on his shoulders and looking into his eyes. The moonlight shone in from the windows, illuminating their bodies as she waited for his fingers to finish gliding up her sides, searching for some blurry hints of green in front of her but finding none. There was no consolation, no light. She starved for him, for that familiar glint in his green-and-blue eyes._

_But they were absent._

_He didn't look at her._

_Instead, he focused on the way his fingers grazed her edges, traveling up the her curves to the slender slopes of her waist, drawing out her divine hourglass figure in the night. She was so fucking mesmerizing. He couldn't understand it. His hands didn't hold her anymore and he knew that she was tired. Her legs shook beneath her, threatening to give out. But she kept herself suspended over his lap, breath quivering with the effort, waiting for him to grip her waist and hold her and make her his. When he did, he rubbed circles on her skin, supporting her weight, holding still and waiting as she slid her hands down his arms, feeling his muscles, his skin—and something told him that perhaps she was admiring him too. Perhaps she was memorizing his body just as he was memorizing hers. Perhaps she sought after his warmth so that it would stay with her forever. Perhaps she needed him as bad as he needed her. Perhaps. Perhaps._

_Finally, she held on to his biceps, pressing her forehead to his, breathing. Her breath was hot and alive on his face._

_Finally, he looked into her eyes, gasping. The girl never ceased to take his breath away._

_There were no sounds around them. Nothing but their uneven puffs as he pushed her up just a little, just so that he was out of her a bit more. She never took her eyes off him. Neither did he take his off of her._

_A pause._

_The room, suddenly bereft of any breathing._

_"What..."_

_And then he yanked her right back down until she landed on his lap. Her face opened in surprise. She cried out, sinking her nails into his arms. "Do you..." And he did it again. Heaved her up and pulled her down with a jerk, their skins meeting with a slap, the sound mixing with their voices as she gasped and he grunted and they huffed helplessly together. Her hands flew behind her and held on to his knees, leaning back so that when he lifted her again and brought her back down, his length plunged into her at that angle that made her scream. He had her crazy. Her jaw hung slack and lovely, eyes rolling back and swiveling like they didn't know where to go. She was panting so hard. It made him grow even stronger. "Want me..." And she carved her nails into his knees when he did it even harder, throwing her head back and screaming so loud he knew the neighbors could hear. She was shaking. Her face was pained and vulnerable and he loved it. "To—"_

_But then she made him forget everything at once._

_Retaliating, she went and took the lead, rendering him useless by repeating that same move all by herself, mimicking it perfectly, clamping her arms around his neck and reminding him she's so powerful, so much better than he'll ever be._

_She lifted herself up, the seconds hanging in the air until she'd almost slid off him entirely, just his tip still left inside—but then she took him right back in and ground down on his lap real fast, real hard. Hard enough that she had him stretching his neck back and groaning out a “fuck”. Hard enough that she couldn't help it and she'd done it again, just to torture him, just to hear him moaning in her place. Just to lean in and taunt him and say:_

_"I'm sorry, what was that?"_

_His mouth was torn between biting his lip and smiling at her, so he did both. He did both and her cheeks shone bright crimson, her heart turned a little fiercer and a little braver and his voice mixed with the butterflies tickling in her tummy, hot and delicious like chocolate melting on her skin. His teeth grazed her earlobe and he answered:_

_"I said..."_

_The way his breath fanned the curvature of her ear made her skin tingle with goosebumps. A staccato. Pauses that made her lose herself in his voice._

_"What. Do you. Want me—" And he found her breasts and squeezed. She choked back a noise, reflexes bolting to clutch his hands, indicating that he'd hurt her. Her face contorted in her pain, a whole different form of vulnerability he didn't like so much. He apologized by kissing the pointy little tip of her nose, then by planting a tender buss on her lips and waiting for the grimace to melt out of her features. Still, she hid her eyes away from him and screwed them shut. He missed them. Wanted them back. He kissed her little nose again, pecked it until she hummed—her way of telling him she accepted his apology._

_He cupped her breasts a bit gentler, and his hands were right, just right, just large enough to hold the loads of them entirely and feel how much heavier they were—still were. He passed his thumbs over her perked little buds and watched the way her lashes fluttered, reverently admiring and loving every ounce of her, loving how perfectly he filled her and how perfectly she filled him. He realized then that he couldn't live without her. Never. It was a fact he always knew, but having her there with him merely reminded him all over. She was his life. His everything. At this thought, his voice grew softer. At the sight of her, his fierce demeanor fell._

_His girl. Blushing roses and breathing out between her parted lips, she still had her eyes closed. She looked so gentle. So right._

_He felt himself crack open._

_Split right in half._

_His fingers swiped the hair away from her eyes. She couldn't see him, but he smiled at her all the same._

_He loved her._

_Everything was fine._

_"To do..."_

_And then her eyes just bloomed right open, stunning, watching him, watching him watch her, hold her, feel her, cherish her. She gave him a look that was both happy and sad—one that he wouldn't be able to understand yet. And then his voice lowered to a whisper, a softer murmur that was pressed against her mouth and he finished telling her, "To you?"_

_Her response was sweet and tender. She moved her lips to find his throat so she could kiss it, capture some beads of his sweat and taste them. Then she turned a lot more serious. Mikasa tasted the sweat and blood and tears to come and told him with no shame._

_"Kiss me."_

_He leaned back. Looked at her._

_She'd opened her mouth to say more but Eren grabbed her face and kissed her long and hard. Kissed her until her moans were pouring into his mouth and he swallowed every single one of them, drank them down like they could quench him, end his thirst. Their tongues tied until they could savor what was left of one another in their mouths, taste the sweetness that lingered on his tongue and know that it was hers, find the vestiges of him on the swollen shapes of her lips and know they came from how she'd sucked him. She'd started moving her hips again, broken back to gasp for air, but he didn't let her catch her breath. He was too impatient. Wanted more of her. Wanted her too bad._

_The way every part of him ached for her that night—it was an ache he'd never felt before. Ravenous. A vital, primal need. It was as if part of him already knew what she would do to him, as if something had been warning him that his demise would surely come. Soon. She would kill him. Eren would perish by her hands._

_Days, months, even years later, he would look back on that night and realize that everything about her had told him. Even the way she breathed had confessed to him what she would do. Every drop of sweat hinted to her efforts, every gasp of his name suggested something more. She'd worn her plan out on her naked body for him to read and decipher. Maybe she'd even hoped that he would know, that he would figure out what she was plotting and try to stop her. But Eren was a fool. He ignored his intuition. He ignored it. The blithe, idiotic fool. How sad, pathetic._

_Humiliating._

_There had been something nagging him at the back of the head, simmering and bubbling. The truth. It nagged and it bubbled and it nagged. It shouted in the cracks of her skin and in the soft, titillating touches of her hands, the fervid clasping of her arms, the desperate way she held him as if he were her lifeline. Everything had warned him. Everything._

_Still, he let it go. Paid no heed._

_Still, he held on to her. Held even tighter._

_He helped her in her rise, grabbed her in her fall, met her in the middle and fucked her like that until her nails were cutting into his back and she had him hissing, until he saw the tendons stretching in her neck and a warm cry spew out of her throat. He brought her close to him, held her so, so, so close to him that he could feel her pants hitting his skin, feel her heart racing as if it were his own and wonder if she could feel his just as evenly. He was safe, he was okay. He held her and he had her and everything was perfect, everything was fine._

_Everything was fine._

_He'd heard of homes having heartbeats once before. Heard poets speak of houses built from flesh and skin and bone—but only after having her, after feeling her life breathe itself right into his, could he really understand what those crazy blokes had meant. Homes were sometimes made of people. He knew. He knew, he knew, he knew. He knew Mikasa was his home._

_Home._

_Home._

_She was his home._

_There was nothing left anymore. Nothing left of him or her and nothing left to do but to exhaust each other. He offered all of him to her, she offered all of her to him, and together they sacrificed every last drop of their strength, so that perhaps one day they might need it in the future, and his arms would strengthen hers, and her legs would carry him forward, and one would live without the other. And life would inevitably go on._

_Time. It was merciless like that._

_Eren surrendered. He gave himself up, laid back down on the bed and watched the sweat trickle down her torso, shimmering like stars rolling down her skin, drops that landed on him as she rode him and watched him and told him to flip her on her back and—_

He's going. To fucking. Faint.

Mikasa chuckles quietly in front of him, still battling to control herself, still lost in her own head.

How much time has passed?

Seconds.

Just seconds.

He's going to faint.

This honestly can't get any worse. It can't it can't it can't.

But it does.

He's going mad.

She's still smiling.

He's so lost.

And she's smiling.

How is this happening?

He still can't breathe.

And she's perfectly fine. Perfectly, perfectly fine.

Suddenly, Eren's on his own. Mikasa fades to nothing right before him. To nothing.

The images come.

They finish him off.

They finish him.

_They switched._

_Him on top, and he was gentle at first. But then she'd asked for more, asked for all of him. Desperately, fervently—begged. Her voice so raw against him, legs clenched so tight around him, holding on for dear life as she told him to give more, more, more. Harder, harder. He'd had her gasping his name between her cries. Had her wrapping all her strength around him, clawing at his flesh and sparking fire. She trapped him and pulled him and pushed him in more and told him to finish, with the last drop of her will, told him "come inside me". Nails dragged across his skin profusely, marking him, scratch marks she'd carved deep into his flesh—tattoos that left him bleeding. Empty. Spent._

_Falling asleep to the drum within her chest. Their song. Loud and playful was their lullaby._

_And then waking up._

_All alone._

_To find nothing._

_No note, no letter. No long, written-out goodbye. The air to have grown drier. Her promise to reverberate, to cling to every sliver of their home. It whispered. It remained._

_It shattered._

_It broke._

_The pieces fell around it to reveal a new, inexorable fact: She's missing._

_The empty space beside him on the bed screamed. The ghostly fragments of her voice blew up in his ears like an explosive, steaming and blazing with the final image of her consuming him in flames—that was his new, sudden reality. That was his new life._

_Eren burned in his rage, in his fire, drowned to ashes and to shame. Burning. Burning. Dying out._

_Slowly, slowly._

_Dying._

_Her promise, her always, still spun all around him. It pierced him. It choked him, cutting him. Eren cried. The devastation of his new reality, the embarrassment—it killed him. The sudden emptiness in his bed, in his hands, in his life—he was motionless. Bereft. Tears shone with defeat in his eyes. Surrender. They leaked out of them for years to follow. Endless. Endless, endless streams._

_A hole, blown right through him._

_Flowers, wilting in every garden. The colors never bloomed quite the same way again._

_The light, no longer there. It was switched off forever._

_The entire world looked different without her._

_He couldn't bear it._

_Eren cried._

_There were nail marks all over him, bloody imprints she'd left behind to scorch him. Her scent still soaked his bed—their bed—and every inch of his body. He'd scrub himself raw. He'd punch holes in walls because he could still taste her, still feel her on him and hear her in his dreams and feel like he still had her. He couldn't believe it. He ran. He ran and ran around to find her, but every forlorn streetlamp and naked house and empty corner and call sent straight to voicemail told him the inconsolable truth._

_She's gone._

_It's over._

_It's all over._

_Mikasa vanished._

_Into thin air._

_Vanished._

_Just like his family. Just like his friends. Just like everything else in his poor, pitiful life. Gone without a trace. Without a warning. Without an explanation. Why? Why?_

_Why?_

_Why did she leave him?_

_Eren never called again. He didn't have to. Immediately, he knew. He knew Mikasa had left him._

_She left him._

_She killed him._

_She was gone._

_Gone._

Gone.

"Eren."

He breathes. Finally, he breathes.

Light-headed, he clutches the edge of the island.. He feels like he just walked out of a nightmare, like he's been tossed and stirred and spewed right back out.

"Hey, Eren? Did you hear me?"

Despite the benevolence in her tone, Mikasa's voice is an abrupt burst to the bubble around him, the prick that pops the sphere and pulls him out.

His mouth opens, useless. He feels his heart plummet at the sound of her words, then shoot right up to his throat once he forces himself to look up at her.

Mikasa.

The Girl.

It's taking all his courage not to snap his gaze away from her eyes. Big. Wide. Beautiful. Worried.

He can't bring himself to stare at them. The coward, he looks away.

"Did… Did you hear what I said?"

"What?" There's a buzzing in his ears. He can't really hear her. He can't meet her snowy, splendid face. He can't. He can't.

The coward.

"I said I don't understand why you're so open about stuff like that," the girl scoffs, eyes all crescent-shaped and smiling, oblivious to what's happening to him. "You know it’s not right."

Her voice is a specter, slithering its way into his ears.

Turning into pants.

To moans.

To breathless cries of _Eren._

Ghosts.

All of them dead. All of them phantoms.

He wants to shut her off and run, to save himself from her firm, throttling hold, from the looming doom of his cracking fortitude. "I don't know either," he breathes in response, and the girl just shakes her head, still smiling, still perfect, still dazzling and inexplicably right. Still everything he's ever wanted.

Everything he'll never have again.

In that instant, Eren's struck with just how much she's changed. He'd thought with delight of all the things about her that still remained. But now he sees. He'd made it all up. He clung to those things in hopes of finding fragments of himself still held inside. Selfish. Always so damn, fucking selfish. Blithe, idiotic fool. But there's nothing. No old Mikasa, no girl with the currants and raspberry scent, no girl except for the one who's changed completely. The one that's engaged now. The bride-to-be.

She'll never be that girl from his past again.

Just look at her.

Never.

The thoughts break his heart to shreds. 

It hurts. It hurts to be with her.

In front of him, she sighs again, that long, drawn-out _"haaaahhhhh"_ that makes his mouth water. She tucks a few strands of hair behind her ears, still regaining her composure from her previous little giggle frenzy. Eren can't stop looking at her. Even though she's so different now and so thin and odd and lanky… She's still mesmerizing. Unreachable. 

Oh, my God.

Eren wants to cry.

"Eren..." Her voice, all of a sudden, is heavy. "I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to laugh."

"What?"

"I've—" She bites her lip, looking to the sides. At that second, Eren bolts awake.

"No, no. Please. Don't be sorry." He tries to force a smile, to assure her he's alright. He doesn't know if he's accomplished anything believable, but he does manage to achieve a mildness to his tone. "Why would I be mad at you for laughing? Really?"

"I don't know..."

He gives her a look that tells her she's being ridiculous, and she laughs again, her voice seeping sweetly like honey pouring from her mouth.

It fucking stings.

Eren’s heart aches at the sight of her. At her air.

And Mikasa… so unaware.

She doesn't know he seethes at the thought that he'd once lived a better life, a life where she was his, where there weren't questions, only answers. Only him and her and the promise that no matter what, they’d always have each other. If one thing was certain in the world, it was that Mikasa would always be with him. Forever. A funny word, that. Forever. Five years ago, it had held the world.

_Always, Eren. I will always be with you._

Mikasa smiles softly.

Eren still wants to puke.

"I guess you're right," she says. He's almost forgotten what they were even talking about. He's reminded when honey seeps out of her mouth in the form of laughter again, though.

How has every word that's come out of her mouth not betrayed him and turned into _I love you_ 's or _I want you_ 's or to jagged, crooked spikes of _Always_? How has he been able to look at her in the eyes and not see the glassed, abyssal gaze that had loved him? How has he been able to see her without immediately wanting to run for his life or, even more, hate her for moving on with hers?

Does she not look at him and see it too? Does she not see his face and recall what he must've looked like sleeping and vulnerable, utterly ignorant of her actions as she slithered out the door and out of his life? Do her hands still shake from where they'd ripped his heart right out of him? Does she not mourn the empty spaces only he can fill? Does she breathe his air and automatically remember:

She'd ripped him apart.

How is she so comfortable with that? So fine? Just look at her. She's so perfectly, damnably fine with it. With everything. So perfectly, damnably fine.

"Besides," Eren finds the strength to say, "I like it when you laugh like that. You should do it more often."

Mikasa doesn't reply. Instead, she blinks, lets her eyes linger on the smirk that curves his lips. But then there's nothing. No dimple. No pearly teeth. No incandescent shimmer. He doesn't look so young anymore. Suddenly, Eren looks much older.

Mikasa wishes there were still some hot chocolate left. There's nothing for her to hide her face in when she dares herself to ask, "Are you sure you're okay?"

He looks at her. His eyes are tired, a hazy, pale shade of green. She can't see the stars in them anymore.

"You look like you've just seen a ghost, Eren."

"Huh?"

"I mean, you look… I don't know."

"Oh." There's the scratchy noise of nails on whiskers as he scratches his cheek. He looks down, still worn out, like the coffee had the complete opposite effect of what it should have. "No. Trust me, Mikasa, I'm alright."

"You sure?"

"Yep."

"Okaaaayyy," she sings, dipping her head to catch his gaze. "Don't lie to me."

Despite himself, Eren smiles. "Trust me, I'm fine."

"Okaayyyy," she carols again, and fuck everything to hell for the way she makes him smile again.

"I can't believe you thought me having a fuck buddy was that funny."

"Oh, it was hilarious."

"It really wasn't."

"I beg to differ."

"Nope. You're just weird."

"Oh-ho! I'm weird?"

"You're the complete epitome of—"

Mikasa bites her lips into her mouth, trying not to giggle. Frowning. Genuinely concerned over whatever else he had to say.

"Okay." The breath that leaves his lips is short. "I think I'm done with this now." He points to the mug in front of her. "Are you done?"

Mikasa nods gingerly, the traces of her amusement still tightening her lips. "Mhm!"

"Good." He takes the mug and walks over to the sink, where he drops everything inside and eyes the faint, sticky stain of her lip gloss on the rim, right above Totoro's gray ears, which make it look like he's got a pink clumpy halo above his big fat head. The stain is small, painted on by the tippy-top of her mouth and the pert, puckered edge of her lower lip. It's so cute and tiny. He snorts to himself because of it, feeling better—just a tiny bit, but better altogether. 

"So…" Her voice is a timid squeak behind him. "How long have you been with your, um, your girlfriend?"

At that, Eren takes a deep breath..

"Four years."

"Oh, wow."

"Yeah. On-and-off."

He doesn't see that she's wringing her hands together. "And I'm guessing that it's... off now..."

Eren turns around, reaching for the can of whipped cream in front of her. Her hands cease their nervous dance when he answers, "Correct."

"Oh." And his eyes leave hers as he turns around to open the refrigerator. Mikasa sees him stick the whipped cream between a half-empty jar of mayonnaise and a glass bottle of ketchup. He lingers, perusing the contents of his own fridge, looking for something to eat, it seems.

Selflessly, she breathes, "...Hence the Hitch."

Eren nods, even smiling a little. "Hence the Hitch."

Well, at least that clears up the whole cheating assumption.

But still…

"What's she like?"

He straightens, looks at her. "My girlfriend?"

Suddenly, it's become much harder to talk. _You shouldn't be asking these questions, Mikasa. You know you shouldn't be meddl—_

"Yes."

"Um, well..." Eren stares out the window for a moment, squinting his eyes as if the whiteness of the world outside were blinding him. "Blonde. Blue eyes. Short. Very pretty."

"Of course." She doesn't even catch herself saying this. When she does though, she looks up at him, curious to see his face. But he doesn't react at all. He just turns right back around to stare at the contents of his fridge, snaking a hand under his shirt to rub his stomach whilst he decides on what to eat.

A sliver of his skin is bared for her to see as his shirt pulls up to expose the side of his hipbone, caramel muscles on his lower abdomen taut and ridged, stretched over his stomach as he runs his hand up and down the—

This is the part where Mikasa rips her gaze away.

"What to eat, what to eat," Eren mumbles, and after he plucks out a can of some sort of sour cream dip, he swiftly turns around to face her, to ask, "And yours?"

Mikasa's eyebrows knit together. "My what?"

"Your fiancé." He sets the dip on the island before digging through the kitchen cabinets and producing a large bag of chips. 

"Well," she says, staring at his hands as they rip the bag open, "you want me to describe him to you?"

"If you want."

"Um..." She takes a deep breath, eyes following his movements as he plucks out a chip and shoves it into his mouth. There's the loud crunch of his teeth breaking into the thing. 

That's her cue to keep on talking.

"Well, he's tall. Very, very tall. Makes me feel tiny."— _kinda like how you do_ —"And uh… let's see. He's my age"— _and yours_ —"'s got slightly tannish skin"— _but yours is tanner_ —"and these intense, sharp eyes"— _that sometimes remind me of you_ —"that are light-brown... sometimes gold, if the light hits them the right way. And, um, he's got ash-brown hair, he's handsome—"

"Of course."

She purses her lips, rolling her eyes at his comment. Eren smiles, shoving another chip into his mouth before twisting the lid off the sour cream dip.

Mikasa scoffs, smoothing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "Seriously?"

"What?"

"You're eating chips?"

Eren swallows, furrowing his brows. "What's wrong with that?"

"Chips and coffee for breakfast," is her deadpan. She's judging him.

"Oh. Hah. Yup." He lifts up the bag, turning the gaping intrusion he made into it her way so that she's hit with a whiff of the high-cholesterol hazard held within. "You want some?"

She wrinkles her little nose. "No, thanks."

Another shrug. Another chip shoved into his mouth. "Alrigh, shuit yourshelff."

"It's good to know you're still eating healthy, Eren."

But he mustn't have heard her. He gives her a look that indicates he's still waiting for her to talk.

Oh. Right. Her fiancé.

"And, ah… well, he's smart. Like, really, really smart. He's to inherit his father's IT company very soon, actually."

"Impressive."

"Yeah."

"That would explain why he's working on a Sunday, then." 

Mikasa sighs, "Right."

"And how is he with you?"

She's quiet for a moment, knowing that the question should make her feel uncomfortable—and normally, it would. But Eren's voice is so calm, allowing space for her reply.

"He's very kind and patient, always gentle with me. We've never fought. Not even once."

"Well, that's good."

"It is."

Mikasa snorts, shaking her head, and then they both breathe out a laugh simultaneously. There's that puny dimple forming at the corner of his mouth as he works a chip into the dip. He's smiling. Genuinely, now.

"How'd you meet?"

"Well, it's kind of a long story."

Eren's answer to that is simple. "I got time."

This makes her smile faintly. She digs a hand into the bag of chips, fishing out two little crisps. "It was about two years ago, back when he was in college. I was sitting alone on a bench eating chips"—she holds up the two crisps in her hand, which Eren acknowledges with a nod—"and reading when he sat next to me and did something that caught my attention."

"Which was...?"

"He started quoting passages straight out of my book. Like, from his memory. Somehow, he managed to see what page I was on and he just summoned from his brain the very words I was reading. It was unreal."

Eren takes in a very deep breath, his chest bloating like he's about to say something immense. 

"Wow." That's it. That's all that comes out of him.

Mikasa nods her head. "Mhm. Then he said he couldn't understand how I managed to make something as simple as reading seem so breathtaking." She smiles, mostly to herself. "And that if he let me walk away without at least knowing my name, that he wouldn't be able to live with himself."

Eren cocks a brow, chewing, droning, "Wow. He sounds like quite the charmer."

"Oh, he can be. When he wants to be, anyway."

"And what book were you reading?"

"Um—"

"Let me guess… _Illusions_?"

She shovels the chips into the dip, pouting. "Yes."

"Ha! I knew it."

"I mean, it's only the one book I've read about fifty times."

"Yeah," he clucks. "Only fifty times."

"Be quiet."

"Do you still have it?"

"The book?"

Eren rolls his eyes. "Nah, Mikasa, the bag of chips you were eating."

"No, I don't," she answers calmly, bringing the chips to her mouth. She makes sure to swallow her food before she speaks again. "And I don't have the book either."

Eren smiles at her deadpan humor, his grin stretching even wider once he sees her absent-mindedly sucking the salt off of her fingertips. 

"And why not?" he asks her, leaning in a bit closer.

She holds her breath. Tries not to smell him.

"I left it behind when I moved," she says, nodding at his dramatic gasp of "what?!"

"Yeah. I know."

"But—" She half expects him to hold a hand to his chest when he accuses, "Why would you do such a thing?"

She sighs briefly, lamenting herself, swallowing a gulp of earthy, citrusy him. "I'm still asking myself that same question."

"Are you still dancing?" Eren asks her suddenly.

Her gaze falls. "No. I don't want to anymore."

Eren pulls out a handful of chips, tilting his head back to throw them into his mouth. He's quiet for a moment, chewing, staring into space. Then, suddenly:

"Wai, fwap?!"

Crumbs go flying off his mouth and land over the island. Mikasa makes a face, the chip she was about to shove into her mouth stopping mid-air.

"Please, Eren," she begs. "Swallow first."

He mumbles imperceptibly, cradling a hand under his chin. Half of her suspects he'll spit his food right out on his hand to yell at her. He chews for a few more seconds, frowning, nostrils flaring in his frustration and Mikasa prays he doesn't choke.

After swallowing, he takes in a breath, cleans his mouth, slaps his hands on the island, looks at her.

He questions, "Why not?"

She answers, "It's complicated."

And Eren spits a curse under his breath. "Bullshit."

Mikasa's eyes grow wide. "I'm… I'm serious."

"But I don't understand," he says, shaking his head. "I mean, Mikasa, dancing is your life."

"Not anymore." She feels part of herself chip off at the declaration.

Eren seems to lose a little piece of himself too.

"But… But that's preposterous!"

"Eren..."

"I'm sorry, I just— I just don't believe that one bit."

Her face is expressionless, a sign that she's closing off, drawing back from the conversation. "I told you. It's complicated."

"Did you quit for no reason?" 

"No." Her voice is toneless. "I know why I'm not dancing."

"Tell me."

Her eyes close, a weary breath passing through her. "Eren."

"Please? Come on, I'm worried here."

"Worried?" Her eyes slide open. They hold his face. "What? Why?"

"Because—" Eren stammers, realizing what he's just said. Embarrassed, he huffs, shaking his head, looking away from her. "Argh, never mind."

But Mikasa clings to his words. She bites down on the lower petal of her rosy mouth before asking, "What do you mean you're worried?"

"Forget it."

And he still won't look at her. The melted snow on her face freezes over in the absence of his heat, and she feels a tinge of panic, mixing with the hot chocolate and chips inside her belly in a way that makes her sick.

"Eren."

"I said forget it, okay?"

"But—"

"Mikasa." He looks into her eyes, twinkling stars and everything. "Let’s let it go."

"Fine."

And then, there's silence.

And then, there's guilt.

It looms over them both. Eren's sure she'll leave now, that he's surely pushed her out. He can almost hear his own words being hissed back at him, mocking, shaming him. _Bullshit. Forget it._

_I said forget it, okay?_

_Mikasa._

_Let it go._

Goddammit.

The more he thinks about it, the more he's certain she'll definitely leave now. He didn't mean to react so impulsively but— Why isn't she still doing what she loves? Her biggest passion? And saying that she doesn't want to anymore? That's just unfathomable! She's only twenty-five! It's too early for her to reti—

It's none of his business.

She's none of your business, Eren.

He's such an idiot. He wishes he knew how to control himself, measure the large quantities of his emotions and spurt them out in fractions, not all at once. He can already hear it: the screech of wood on wood, the click of her heels upon his floor, the loud pang of the front door slamming shut, a boom that reso—

"It's just life."

One of them speaks.

Eren raises his head.

He realizes it's Mikasa.

"Life." A sigh, her shrunken chest deflating. "That's why I'm not dancing, Eren. Marriage, moving to a whole new place… It's all too much right now."

He looks pained. "But dancing's your life, Mikasa. You love it. You always have. You love it so much."

And this is where they're both completely different: when pressed with heat, Eren sizzles. Mikasa, however, turns to ice.

"Yeah, well, I don't know what to tell you," she says. "I'm not dancing right now, and that's that."

"Alright," and he tries to give his best impersonation of apathy, certain that he's failed.

Mikasa grows quiet, very quiet, staring out the window, and Eren doesn't see the snowflakes reflected in her eyes this time, doesn't see them landing over the inky waters of her pools, forming ripples before fading.

Her eyes look hollow, and even though the rest of her expression is carved from frigid stone, she's always had the disadvantage of possessing mirrors on her face, two windows that allow a peek to what's happening inside. She blinks once, twice, and Eren realizes he's counting. He realizes he's peeking, searching for glimpses of the old Mikasa—his Mikasa—still painted on her face. And he knows he shouldn't do it. And he knows he's such a fool. And for that, just that, he does it anyway.

There's salt dusted on her fingertips, some even on her nails, and she doesn't bring them to her mouth this time, doesn't bother to clean it off. Because her mind now travels elsewhere. Away from her. Away from him. She thinks, she goes, she wanders.

She wilts.

The resplendent rose.

She wanes.

Eren wonders even more what she must feel like, how the salt on her hands might taste. And the awnings that hang over her eyes flutter wistfully as she blinks, like little butterflies preparing to take flight and leave her. And he's never felt so far away from her before—he has her right here, and yet she feels so far away from him. She deserts him, and he can't understand how it is that he once had his whole world splayed open right in front of him, blooming at the palms of his hands, shaking and gasping and breathing life and essence. But yet life would play him a cruel trick, a black hole would suck in everything. He'd be forced to live without her, to learn how to breathe anew. Because the oxygen never flowed into his lungs the same way again. He was always choking on his words since uttering her name was no longer allowed. 

But now, here she is.

Quiet, thinking, annoyed at him—already. And he loves that she makes him nervous, and he loves that he makes her mad. He loves that when he's with her, he can feel things, he can feel. He doesn't really understand it, it's not something a man like him would ever be able to explain, but she's killed him so many times before and yet she's the only person who makes him feel like he's truly living.

And he knows, with every part of him, he knows:

_I'm going to have to let her go again._

'Cause now the petals are falling off her, one by one, the remainder closing off into a bud and shriveling into herself. And Eren feels so useless, so incompetent, because there's nothing he can do.

He's gonna have to let her go again.

_"Fiancé?"_

_"Yeah, I'm getting married in a few weeks."_

_"That's wonderful!"_

A lie.

_"Thank you."_

And then the sky had fallen on him.

_"I'm very happy."_

Very happy.

Very happy without him.

This fiancé of hers, this… man. Does he have the same girl Eren once had? Does she whisper his name into his shoulders and let him kiss her eyes to sleep? Does she make promises to him, like she'd done to Eren? Does she love him just as ardently, with just as much, with equal amounts of herself poured into every move, every phrase, every clasp of her arms and arch of her back and sputtered words left steaming on her tongue?

She's so deep into her thoughts, she's not even blinking anymore.

As Eren reaches over to pluck another chip out of the bag, he tries very hard not to touch her. He doesn't dare. He scoops up some of the dip. She's still entranced.

He doesn't dare.

And yet he feels her anyway.

Solid in his hands, planting kisses down his body, wrapping herself around him with her smiles, with her legs, with everything she has. And Eren knows he's fucked, big time, because he's already felt her all over him, and she hasn't moved an inch. He's already heard her breathe his name into his ear, and she hasn't even spoken. He's already jumped three steps in front of her fiancé, and he's never even met the man.

He finds some strange kind of solace in knowing that he's taken things from her that her new husband will never have. Like her first kiss, her first date, her first slow dance, her first ballet, her first skinny dip, her first favorite book, her first I love you, her first fuck, her first _will you marry me?_ , her first _I do_ , her first always, her first—

" **AAAND IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII—!!!!!!!!"**

"Ah!"

"Jesus!"

Yelps, jumping hands scurrying for the vibrations in her purse, Eren's sour-cream-dipped chip flying off his hand and landing down his stomach.

"— **WILL ALWAYS LOOOVE YOOOOOOUUU!!!!!!"**

"I-I'm sorry!"

"What the fuck?"

" **OOH OOH OOH OHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"**

"Sorry, sorry." Eren's clutching his chest, trying to keep his soul from leaving his body as Mikasa pants, rummaging through her purse, frenzied. "It's just"—her face turns pale when she holds the belting iPhone to her face—"my cell."

They both look at one another.

"Him?"

She nods.

He does, too.

Whitney Houston still screams the anthem of Satan through her ringtone, the phone reverberating furiously in Mikasa's hand.

Or is she shaking?

She looks terrified.

They both glance down at the streak of sour cream on his shirt.

Eren looks back up at her.

She _is_ terrified.

"I'll be back," he breathes.

She nods again, holding the phone against her chest, mouthing out a _sorry_.

He mouths back, _it's okay._

And then he goes.

She speaks.

Whitney Houston stops singing.

"Hello?"

_"Heeeeeeeeeeey, Baby!"_

"Jean."

Those are the last three things Eren hears before going into his bedroom.

The hinges creak and he contemplates closing the door entirely, but Mikasa's chirpy voice slips in through the thin space between the wall and the door, so he settles for looking at her through the crack.

"Really?" Her back's to him, and her shoulders seem so tense, Eren feels his own muscles cramping. "Oh. Well, that's nice."

Silence.

"I'm okay. Yeah."

Silence again.

"Nothing, really." She doesn't move an inch. Eren wonders if she's even breathing. "Just cleaned, fed Jiji, ate some toast. Yup. That's it." She's talking about her day, of course.

Eren isn't mentioned.

He wonders, though, if perhaps a trace of him leaks out her words, sodding them in his presence.

_I'm in someone else's home. Without you. Laughing. Talking. Getting mad._

That's what Eren hears. It's what he hears instead of:

"I miss you too."

He closes his eyes.

Tries not to feel it.

The sting. Ignore it. Ignore the pain.

"You are?" Suddenly, she sounds amused. He hears the happiness in her words, the way her murmurs take flight into gentle exclamations. "Really? Oh. Oh?"

And then she laughs. A brief, flaccid chuckle, a different kind of laughter than the one she graces around him.

"Well maybe you should stop buying Pringles, ever thought of that?"

She laughs again.

That foreign laugh.

Eren steps away from the door, turning his back to it, gazing into his own bedroom. He still smells Hitch all over the place. He still smells Mikasa.

"No, he didn't." Her tone is soft. Eren sighs, wet under the drizzle of her breathy voice, drenched in the downpour of her laughter.

"I mean, at least not while I was there. I just fed him, is all."

Suddenly, the man's voice bursts into the apartment.

 _"_ **_Well, I'm just saying—"_ **

Mikasa frets, hissing. "Shoot!"

Eren turns to peek through the door, watching as her fingers clamber along the phone's touch-screen. He hears the man's deep, musical drone, tilting with amusement as he talks to his future wife.

 _"—_ **_if he gets his head stuck in one of those Pringles tubes again I'm just gonna have to—"_ **

It's gone.

Mikasa runs a hand down her face, sitting up straighter, pressing the phone to her ear and blowing out through her nose.

Eren watches her.

_Ba-dump-ba-dump-ba-dump-ba-dump._

Why is his heart beating so fast?

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just… I pressed the speaker button with my cheek."

She laughs a breath.

Eren does, too.

"Well, I'm still new to these types of phones."

And then she's silent for a long while, twirling a lock of hair around her finger, listening to her fiancé talk. Eren imagines his voice, recalling it from memory. Strong and gruff, but yet laced with all the kindness in the world. Maybe he really is as gentle with Mikasa as she says he is.

"Mhm. Yeah."

Eren listens to her, absorbing her voice, her words, every intake of air before her sentences. And she never turns to glance his way.

Eren doesn't realize he's closed his eyes again, pressed his back to the wall, drowned in every "yes" and "no" she utters. Her answers are all short. They're all simple, spoken with the comfort of knowing someone for a long time.

"Yeah, okay. See you there."

Eren's eyes open to focus on nothing in particular, his own bed a blurry hint behind the hazy gloom of everything.

"Bye— What? I'm sorry, I didn't hear you."

A pause.

"Oh. Yeah. Ye— Oh, my God."

Another one.

"Okay. I love you too."

 _"Mikasa."_ The man's voice rips slits through Eren’s ears. He hears him, and the phone's not even on speaker anymore. 

"Hmm?"

_Okay. I love you too._

"What?"

_I love you too._

"I know."

It echoes, it echoes.

"Okay. Bye."

_I love you too. I love you too. I love you—_

"Eren?"

He gasps.

"Yeah!" He pulls his T-shirt over his head as he dashes through his bedroom. "I just— Hold on."

A whisper. "'Kay."

The screech of wood on wood.

The click of her heels upon his floor.

Mikasa's leaving.

Eren slides his closet door open, plucking out the first hooded sweater to catch his eye, hurling his dirty t-shirt to the side. He works himself into the hoodie, almost tripping over his own feet as he scrambles to the door, whence he finally takes a deep breath, skims a hand through his messy hair, opens it, and goes out.

"Hey," is the first thing Mikasa says when she sees him.

And now, she stands.

A spacious gap between her thighs.

A tendril of hair fallen over her face.

Her bun slightly loosened.

Eren's toilsome eyes straining to hold still.

"Hey. Everything okay?"

"Yeah, I..." She's quiet for a second, running her hands down her jeans, Eren feeling like his eyes are about to pop out of his face and roll onto the floor. "He's uh… He's on his way home."

"Oh?"

"I know." She shrugs, her shoulders going up so high they nearly press against her diamond earrings. "He just… I don't know. He managed to get out early."

"That's great!" There's a crack in his voice.

"Yeah." She takes in a long breath, her lungs inflating widely, and Eren spots the curved shape of her bra's underwire beneath her top. "Anyways, I should go now."

The space between them shrinks, but somehow, it feels like it's only gotten bigger.

"Make the best of it," Eren tells her, walking towards her as she makes her way to the door.

Mikasa shakes her head incredulously, wrapping his crimson scarf around her neck before lifting her coat off the hanger. "I'm telling you, it's a miracle. He never—" She stops herself, looks up at him, sighs. "Well, you wouldn't care to know."

"Really," Eren smirks, slipping his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. "You underestimate me."

And the smile on her face is so damn worth it. She doesn't even bother to put on her gloves, instead just hooks her purse over her elbow, turning to him, and Eren wishes his front door would miraculously melt shut, or freeze over, or that the latch would break and lock them both inside forever so that she never leaves him again.

"Thank you, Eren," she whispers, scratching the corner of her mouth. He wonders if the salt still sticks to her fingertips. "For the hot chocolate. For the chips."

He rings his hand around the doorknob, praying that it doesn't work. "It's no problem."

"I'm sorry I laughed at you."

"Stop."

"And made you smear sour cream dip all over your shirt."

"You see, now that," he makes a face, "not sure I'll ever forgive you."

A smile. "Oh, no."

A solemn nod. "It's my favorite shirt."

And then there's a long beat, and echoing twang of silence. He doesn't move his hand—not yet—reluctance glues his fingers to the doorknob.

Mikasa seems to want to tell him something. Eren ponders what else to say.

But neither of them say anything.

"Okay, time to go," she breathes out eventually, perking up like a little girl.

Eren tests the knob. It opens.

God is cruel.

"Time to go," he echoes, knowing he should've put a lot more effort into sounding less disappointed.

Promptly, the girl slinks her way out of his apartment, her scent burning in his nostrils. Once outside, she turns around to face him, and Eren thinks he feels his heart droop a little, sagging like a sad tree.

He stands still, looking down at her, thinking of ways to make her stay.

She stands too, looking up at him, thinking of ways to say goodbye.

"Ah, wait!" Eren blurts out suddenly, turning to find some shoes. "Hold on, I'll walk you to the door."

"No, no," she's quick to object. "Really. I have to run."

"Yeah, but—"

"Eren. Please. Just..." She screws her eyes shut, bouncing slightly. "No."

“Okay." His arms drop to his sides, defeated.

Mikasa gives him a look that says she's thankful for his effort—and there's that presence again, that air. That whisper that says, _go on, say something to him. Tell him you'll come back, that you'll see him, to wait for you, to wait._

But she ignores it.

Jean is on his way home right now. Jean. On his way home. Jean.

It's time to go.

"Okay, have a good—Wait!" She half-turns to walk away but whips right back around to extend her hand, palm up, and hold it out to Eren.

He looks down at it. What, does she want him to grab it?

"My pen."

Oh. Right. Of course.

"Shit, hold on," and he races to his bedroom. Mikasa cranes her neck, taking a peek inside, watching him slip in through the door, the discombobulated bed sheets carrying a whole new meaning now that she knows so much about his love life. She tries not to think of the fact that Hitch's apartment door is right behind her, capable of swinging open at any second and exposing her to the sight of hickeys, rumpled blouses, sex-tousled hair, scorching eyes from hell.

She hears the opening and closing of drawers, the roving of his hands through paper, the exasperated “fuck” he spits under his breath as he searches through his stuff. She smirks, thinking of how nice he looks in that hoodie he's wearing now. Green. Like his eyes. The color certainly suits him. It's a good thing he's been wearing it all day because—

No. No, she did not just think that. Ha. Whoa.

Mikasa coughs.

Finally, Eren shows up. He's got her pen in his right hand, a small book in the other, and a shit-eating grin on his face. "Here you go," he says, slightly out of breath, offering her all three things.

Mikasa peers down at his hands, retrieving the items, gawking at the small book—and suddenly, something flutters to life inside of her. She's hit with the familiarity of it: a single blue feather poised amid the center of the cover, a faint trail of glinting stars gathered around it. She knows this book. Her eyes dart around the images, absorbing every tiny, glimmering dot—shooting up to meet the ones that glimmer within Eren. His eyes shine with an odd sort of happiness. She's breathless when she speaks, knowing that she's read the bolded lettering correctly but still asking, "What's this?"

"It's _Illusions,_ " Eren smiles, running his fingers through his hair, pulling the strands away from his face. "Take it."

Mikasa's eyes grow enormous. "Eren." She shakes her head feverishly, holding the book out to give it back to him. "No, no, Eren, I can't."

"Don't be stupid. Just take it."

"But it's yours."

He moves a hand around in the air, swatting off her objections before they reach his ears. "I've got like five other copies. Please. Just take it."

"But you can't just give me your—"

"It's a book, Mikasa. Not my liver." He pushes her hands closer to her body, feeling the way she goes stiff under his touch. The contact only lasts a second, because then her eyes are on him, startled and amazing. His hands tingle where they'd touched her. Light-headed, he grins. "Merry Christmas."

She stands dumbfounded, staring at him, the raven lock of hair that's fallen over her face sticking to her lips as she blinks through her daze. "Uh..." She glances down at her hands, holding the book and pen firmly in her grasp. "Thank you," she whispers, looking back up at him, her eyes bubbling over with gratitude and she turns such a pretty shade of pink that Eren thinks he's going to be on the verge of crying again. "I'll bring it back when I'm done."

"Sounds good to me." Perfect, actually. Sounds fucking perfect.

They stand in silence for a moment: Mikasa holding the book to her chest as if she were trying to melt it into herself, Eren staring at the scarf around her neck and at the rosiness of her face and bare knuckles and wondering what other more secretive parts of her might still be that—

"I had fun," she squeaks, pulling her purse up to her shoulder, and everything about her screams such a crude resemblance to his past that Eren has to swallow down the sudden lump that's lodged itself in his throat.

He chokes a little. "Me, too."

And he sees her, about to leave, sucking in a breath before talking again.

And time stops.

He hears her.

_Always, Eren._

_I will always be with you._

And then everything resumes again.

The bud sprouts to a bloom before he can even stop it. "Okay, I really have to go now. Merry Christmas!" She flourishes, dashing through the corridor, the sound of her heeled footsteps beating in his ears."See you soon!"

"Yep!"

And he's waving out a hand. She's giving him a smile over her shoulder.

And everything hurts. Everything hurts.

She's already half-way down the stairway when he suddenly calls out her name.

"Oh, Mikasa?"

The footsteps come to a halt, a quick six taps as she gallops up the stairs to be high enough to see him. She holds a hand to the railing, turning to face him.

"Yeah?"

"Try not to break our front door this time, okay?"

The roll of her eyes is so severe, Eren fears she might've induced a headache. "Bye, Eren."

"Bye."

And then she's gone.

Just like that.

Gone again.

He stands frozen for a moment, smacked across the face by the entirety of what's just occurred. The beating in his chest is so violent, he thinks his heart might just jump right off his chest and try to chase after her. His blood rushes through him with such force, Eren fears he'll run out of it and plop back onto the ground and just, like, die.

That… just happened.

Mikasa was just here.

Mikasa.

Here.

The door slams shut.

A loud boom that resonates through his apartment as he flies over to the window in his room, peeling back a sliver of the curtain so that he can see outside.

Immediately, he sees her: body bobbing up and down as she walks, snowflakes falling gently all around her—and even from this angle, Eren can catch that distinct glide in her gait, the way her shoulders square, how her legs stretch out underneath her, the way her hair's pulled up into that bun with the frilly fly-aways. And when she digs her fingers to meddle with the hair tie, a waterfall of black tresses spills free. She's walked far enough now that Eren can hardly see her, and yet he catches the way her hair reaches all the way down to the center of her back, and then he's suddenly forgotten how to breathe entirely.

How many girls hasn't he confused for her before? Thinking it was her walking right outside of his apartment, making her way to and fro. And now it is. And now it is her! It is, it is, it is!

She takes a turn down the street and vanishes from view entirely, his heart gasping at her abrupt absence.

That's it.

She's really gone now.

With a sigh, Eren traipses over to the living room, looking around, realizing how empty his own home feels now without her, like she's meant to be inside it all along. The places she'd touched, every surface and space she'd merely brushed against... they're all stained. Changed. Different because she was there. 

Her perfume lingers around him. Her voice echoes in his ears. Sweetly, endearing, she echoes. She breathes. She laughs. She speaks. She talks to him.

_"F-fuck, Eren."_

_"What?"_

_"Stop teasing me."_

Mikasa.

How has he managed to live these past few years without her?

_"I hate you."_

_"Say that again."_

_"I. Hate. You."_

All his life, Eren's been the square peg in a round hole. Nothing's ever really made much sense to him. He's always been the odd one out. Always unfitting.

But with her, the opaqueness of his life bleeds forth into a sort of clarity.

But with her, the light pours in from the windows just the right way.

But with her, and only her, life makes a bit more sense as to why one must keep living.

_"I love you, though. I love you, Mikasa."_

_"I do, too."_

The now-foreign air of his home pours into his lungs. He takes a deep breath, letting the scent of her perfume fill him.

Eren closes his eyes.

Sees her.

This time, he doesn't feel pain at the thought of her face, at the fact that there's another man's engagement ring claiming her finger. For once, he feels no sadness. He doesn't feel, doesn't hear, doesn't fret or freak or anything. He just is. Suddenly, Eren, he just is.

_"Stay with me."_

_"Always."_

As he opens his eyes again, he finds the spots in his apartment where Mikasa had just been. The island, his living room, his room. All of these are places he'd perished many times before. On all those different spots, he's woken up after nights he can't remember, with people whose faces he could never understand, missing his heart and some parts of his belongings. But now those spaces glow. They're pure and bright and pretty because she'd touched them. 

What once was cruel is now so beautiful.

That's just what the world is like when she's with him.

The snow still falls outside, white and soft and perfect. He contemplates going over to Hitch to retrieve his phone, perhaps even tell her what just happened. She'd laugh. Tease him. Bust his behind for kicking her out the way he did earlier. He contemplates the rest of his day. What will he do now? Where will he go? 

But, honestly…

What does it matter?

Truly, nothing else matters to him anymore. There's no point. Life's still empty and pointless but now in a whole new way. How fucked up is that? It's like he's still the same shitty person—he knows he's still the same man—but somehow now he's better. Somehow now he's new.

Somehow now he smiles.

To himself, he smiles.

_"Say that again."_

_"Always, Eren. I will always be with you."_

Because maybe, just maybe, the girl never lied to him after all.


	6. Part II: One Upon a Time, I Met a Prince

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: racism.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alas, the first past chapter. it will interchange from past to present from here on out, now that we are in the body of the story and the true storytelling begins.

Part II: Denouement

They met when they were nine.

A mutual friend, Armin, had introduced them one summer afternoon. The wind had been thick. There was a density to it, a sort of weight. The type of foretelling in the atmosphere before the start of something new, something magnificent.

The hiss of swaying trees spoke of such encounters, every turning leaf narrating the tales of queens and kings and how they stumbled upon each other on a day very much like this one. Something great was cooking. Something powerful was about to occur. The sun found its place in the sky, the clouds dispersed, nature arranged itself around them. Promises, promises. They trilled in the air.

Mikasa couldn't have known how to explain it, but she understood the mystical reality of it all. Emotions smoldered within her, threatening to corrode the calm composure she'd imposed upon herself. But still, despite fateful turns of leaves and the promises of the wind, she was just a girl, and in her mind dwelled merely fairy tales. And fairy tales, unfortunately, did not exist.

Even nine-year-old Mikasa was a skeptic.

Her hair stuck to her forehead, but she couldn't blame it on the humidity. She was nervous. Scared, really. Black tendrils adhered to her skin with sweat.

She was a mess.

Surely, princesses didn't fret in this manner when meeting their future kings, now did they? Did they stammer and perspire? Did they shake and forget how to form words? As far as she knew, princesses always knew exactly what to say and how to act at all times.

Sadly, that wasn't the case with her at all that day. Mikasa had been very much afraid. And in her fear, she stammered, she doubted, she frayed. 

Moving to a new town meant meeting new people, making new friends—something she certainly wasn't used to. Towns bustled with traffic and adults and squealing children and barking dogs. She was used to the tranquility of living in the woods, of fishing with Papa, of helping Mama with dishes and going to bed with the warm satisfaction of a full belly, accompanied by the incessant chirping of crickets and the occasional howl of a coyote or two. But she couldn't dance ballet in the woods, and Daddy's job started demanding more than just thrice-a-week visits. And thus, they moved. And thus, there she was.

Her future stretched wide before her, glistening with promise and excitement. But when she stood beside Armin that day, before a strange, foreign boy, his small shadow cast an enormous weight on her. Sweaty, and shaking, and forgetting how to speak, Mikasa longed for the safety of her old home, where trees were the only strangers she ever got to talk to. At least trees never judged her. At least trees never needed to be impressed.

She took a long, deep breath.

“Mikasa,” Armin said, flitting a hand between her and the boy, “this is my friend, Eren.”

Her dress danced in the wind. She held it down, willing the skirt still by gripping it tightly at the edges. The black polka-dots still moved around relentlessly.

“Hello,” she voiced before swiping her bangs out of her face, quickly returning that hand down to her flowing dress to ensure its obedience. “It's really nice to meet you.” Her mother had taught her manners—and a good thing too, since she could rely on that for bureaucratic use of speech. She couldn't help feeling a bit proud of herself for the accomplishment. Trees, suddenly, were no longer enticing friends.

The boy, however, took a while to reply. He blinked slowly, squinting his eyes, gauging her existence as if he were making her out through a tactless blur.

She, too, stared at him.

His expression bemused her, not to mention that it made her that much more insecure. His brows came together in a frown, gaze piercing straight through her in a way that made her own drop to his knees, where she saw scrapes, dried-up blood, a grubby band-aid clinging (just barely) to his left shin. He was, in every sense of the word, strange.

Armin stood awkwardly between them, waiting for his friend to _—_ finally—wipe his nose with the back of his hand, sniffle, and talk.

“Hi!”

That was it. That's all he told her.

The first Major Thing Mikasa noticed, as she blinked at the odd child, was his hair. It was crazy. It had a life of its own, standing out all unruly and fluttering sideways in the breeze, throwing his bangs over his forehead, some stands glowing yellow in the sunlight.

The second Major Thing was his eyelashes. She had always thought boys couldn't grow long eyelashes. She realized then that she'd been wrong.

The third Major Thing was the pinkness of his cheeks, ruddy from exercise and perhaps too much shouting. They matched her own cheeks. She didn’t know boys' cheeks could turn pink either.

He was an odd specimen. A creature she was now exposed to, one she could not comprehend. His attention seemed to bounce around like a ball, jumping this way and that and never really staying in one place. His eyes, bright green and shining, shot to Armin, then to her, then to Armin again and then right down to the dirty soccer ball he held in his hands before he looked once more to his friend and said, “Hey, does this mean she can play with us?”

“Play with you?” Mikasa echoed, still holding her dress. Her voice wavered, but the boy didn't seem to notice, for in his expression flourished with something far too excited to be nullified by her own qualms.

“Yeah!” and then his giddy attention focused on her. Her hair blew over her face again. She didn't bother scolding it. “You could be in my team!”

“Eren,” Armin chided. “She can't.”

Then, that was when she noticed the fourth Major Thing: his eyes possessed a strange undertone of blue. The color flared through when he gaped tragically, “Why not?”

“Because,” their friend whispered secretively, bringing up a hand to cup one side of his mouth, “she's wearing a dress.”

“So?”

“So she can't play soccer.”

“I don't get it.”

“She could trip and fall. Her dress could get caught on something.”

“But it's an open field!”

“She'll get hurt, Eren.”

This made him pout. Frown. Slump his shoulders.

“Shit.”

Mikasa gasped, covering her mouth at the word he'd just spoken. The s-word was a big no no in her household. If her parents had heard him talk like that, he would've been in trouble. Her ears felt dirty just by hearing him, and his presence suddenly perturbed her; but when she turned to peer at Armin, he didn't seem affected by his obscenity at all.

“Eren,” he sighed, “please,” but then said no more.

When the boy turned his gaze on her again, she saw that not only were his eyes green with blue and fringed by his lengthy lashes which touched the tops of his rosy cheeks whenever he blinked, but she also saw that they held little flakes of fire in them, burning bright, bright gold and dazzling her. That was the fifth Major Thing she saw.

“I'll get someone else on my team, then,” Eren settled. And just like that, the boy swiveled on his heels and ran off.

It felt like the leaves turned again, but this time to the opposite direction.

Did princes ever leave their princesses like that?

In her heart, she realized, there was pain. Some dull sting reminiscent of disappointment, like the one she feels whenever Mama bakes apple pie instead of chocolate cake for dessert. She couldn't understand it, but it was as if her heart wasn't agreeing with the current string of events. 

She was left to stand there with her weird emotions as her lips parted in a fruitless attempt to speak. She stared at the back of the boy's head, her eyes drifting up and down the length of his body until suddenly he turned around, threw his hair out of his eyes, smiled at her.

At that instant, she noticed the final Major Thing:

A dimple.

Very small.

His teeth were lined neatly save for a single crooked lateral incisor, screaming out as the only imperfection as his lips stretched so wide they created a tiny indentation by the corner of his mouth. His grin was flashy and astounding, a blasphemy in some way, a burst of emotion she seldom saw on other children (not that she ever really saw other children). Her eyes lingered on that strange dimple for some reason. It was as if she were imagining it. Mikasa blinked at it multiple times, unsure of whether it was truly there. 

“It was nice to meet you, Ackerman!” he tweeted before vanishing, jogging back to the band of squealing children in the park, leaving her to gape at Armin as he merely shrugged at her and sighed.

“He's kinda weird a little,” he told her. “You'll get used to him.”

All she could think to do was nod, revise the list of Major Things she'd just discovered, and wonder how it was the child knew her last name. Surely, she couldn’t remember ever giving it to him.

He left a big impression on her, that boy. The sun shone and the clouds moved and the leaves hissed and Mikasa wondered what was wrong with her, for she felt ill in his absence. His presence lingered even after he was gone, the way smoke does after a fire's been extinguished.

**—o—**

School was a nightmare.

Mama's benign expressions and Papa's set of thumbs up didn't do much to encourage her either. In the sea of unfamiliar faces, Mikasa was the odd one out. The guppy. The tiny one. The weakling. The scarce. Even teachers bared knives for teeth. Everyone was a shark. Everyone was out to get her.

On the first day of fourth grade, Mama had been kind enough to drive Mikasa to school, as she felt that taking the bus would induce a mild panic episode. She'd been right, of course. Mama was always right in everything. It was one of the powers that came with being an adult: predictability.

Hopping out of the van, after re-adjusting the straps of her backpack on her shoulders, Mikasa took a very deep breath and told God that if He helped her that day, then she would swear to eat all of her veggies at dinnertime. Mikasa didn't believe in fairytales, but she was a firm believer in God.

And so she whispered, under her breath, “Give me strength, Kami, and I promise I will eat all the broccoli tonight.” Kami was what she dubbed her God. She'd decided on the name a few years prior, after asking Mama what God was called in Japanese. Kami, she had answered. And thus Kami God now was.

Mikasa was a child of many questions, but the howling wilderness of elementary school silenced her curiosity and pushed it into a very private space within herself. Her voice deteriorated in her throat. What once were vivid questions, pulsating with the promise of answers that practically glowed, now wilted and fell apart inside her.

Mikasa wanted to cry.

Once Mama gave her the day's goodbye kiss, Mikasa swallowed a large gulp of air to ease the pain and fear. Mama had then whispered small encouragements, given her a tiny shove, and watched as little Mikasa waddled away, sparing a few back glances only to be met by a mother's wide encouraging smile, her set of black-gray eyes that matched her own twinkling more and more the wider she grinned. The farther Mikasa got away from her, the more she felt like sprinting back. Step, after step, after step, the girl kept walking, until she was so far away from her mother that she couldn't see her anymore.

Mikasa really wanted to cry.

“Give me strength, Kami. Give me strength.”

She was weightless, carried off by the current and swept into the crowd of people, the sea of sharks, the ocean of terror. Her throat tightened into a knot and tears pricked her eyes. She was scared. She was terribly intimidated and yet, somehow, still as equally excited.

She was silent.

All morning, Mikasa was silent.

She didn't speak unless told to do so. She scribbled quietly on her notebooks, doodled flowers and ponies (two balls and a set of stick legs and a long tail, that's a pony) and studied the world around her with quick, fleeting eyes. The only time her vocal chords strained to make any sort of noise was when it was her turn to introduce herself to the class. “Mikasa Ackerman,” she boomed during first period, making a few of the kids jump. She made a mental note: Next time, say it more quietly.

Science, Math, English, all classes went the same. What was her name? Mikasa Ackerman. Was she new to the school? Yes, she was. Was this her first time going to a private school? Yes, indeed. It was also her first time going to a school in general. She'd been home schooled all her life. Did she have friends in this school? Yes. She had a friend named Armin but he didn't come to school that day 'cause he was sick. Armin was always sick. 

And so the day rolled on, and after a period or two Mikasa's uneasiness settled. She found that school wasn't as hard and she'd initially thought it would be. All she had to do was sit quietly and pay attention—and even when the subjects got boring and she found her focus flying away, all she had to do was play pretend. She was good at that, playing pretend. In her mind, she built castles, kingdoms, thrones. She soared. The teachers never noticed.

The first day of school was moving along smoothly. With a tinge of happiness, Mikasa saw the sharks around her turn to friends. She liked it here. She could stay. She couldn't wait to tell her parents about her wonderful first day.

But then last period came.

It was art class.

One would think such a class would be the easiest, right? That's what Mikasa had thought. She'd been wrong.

The teacher insisted that all students take turns writing their names on the chalkboard and then proceed to share a fun fact about themselves, so that the other kids would get a start in knowing them. The assignment was both terrorizing and pointless. When the teacher had demanded such an introduction, Mikasa blanched.

She prayed to Kami. She revised their truce. Give me strength and I'll eat the veggies. Give me strength and I'll eat them all. Even the carrots. Even the peas. Give me strength, God, and I will do it. She was half-way through her fourth or fifth prayer when it was suddenly her turn to go.

The room brimmed with silence.

She pushed her chair back with an ear-splitting screech, arose, balled her small hands into fists and ignored the fact that they were shaking. They itched to be wrung together, the way they always did when she was nervous. But she fought. She reminded God of their deal and mentally prepared herself for the task ahead.

Taking a large inhale, she took a dive into the depths of the ocean. Not even sharks would take her. She could do it. She was brave. It was simple: write your name, spill a fun fact about yourself, and then never repeat the procedure again. Never. She could do it. She was strong.

Finally, Mikasa stood before the sea of children. The teacher, Mrs. Ral, gave a small nod.

Go on, she mouthed to her. Go on.

And so she did.

“My name is Mikasa Ackerman.” Her voice bounced from head to head, from blinking eye to blinking eye, and she watched as it reached each of her classmates' ears until, suddenly, a startling pair of teal-green circles inundated her vision and sunk her confidence into the farthest reaches of her soul.

Her heart gasped.

Her tummy fluttered with a swarm of butterflies and Mikasa, poor Mikasa, forgot what she was just about to say or do. She couldn't remember why she stood before her classmates and Mrs. Ral anymore. The leaves turned, the sun shone, nature assembled. She saw all of it in those eyes. She saw all of it.

Eren stared at her.

With his bangs over his forehead, his long lashes flitting patiently with every slow blink of his eyes, his cheeks no longer pink but the pencil he chewed on was redolent of the same color. She didn't know boys used pink pencils. She didn't know Eren was in this class. She didn't know anything.

Eren stared at her.

Mikasa looked away.

Mrs. Ral's voice broke the silence.

“Sweetie,” she pointed at the large chalkboard behind the trembling child, “write your name.”

“Oh.” The classroom swelled with a twang of laughter. The kids all giggled among themselves and Mrs. Ral tried to shush them. Before turning around to grip the worn stick of chalk, Mikasa stole a quick peek at the boy she'd met only a few days ago.

Eren wasn't laughing.

Everyone around him, though, still was.

“Quiet,” Mrs. Ral hissed at the children. After a few seconds, they finally obeyed.

Shriek, shriek, screeeeech! The chalk was a cringe-inducing cacophony as she drew her name on the board. As soon as a neat, meticulous _Mikasa Ackerman_ was written out in large letters, she turned around and went to make her way back to her chair hastily. The teacher, though, promptly objected before she could get far.

“Wait, whoa, don't go yet.” The children laughed again, louder this time. “Shh! Kids, please.” Mikasa swallowed down the lump inside her throat, the tears straining to burgeon. “You're not done yet, honey.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't apologize.” Mrs. Ral scribbled something down on her notebook, half-sitting on her desk. Her foot, suspended, swung back and forth in the air like the mocking arm of a clock. Tick, tock. Back and forth. Counting the seconds.“That's an interesting name you have there, Mikasa.” _Is it really?_ “Do you know what it means?”

Her lips parted. She breathed through them. She closed her eyes until the tears were gone, and then she spoke.

“Papa says I was named after a battleship.”

Quiet laughter.

“A battleship?” The teacher's eyes were wide. Did she say something wrong? Self-conscious, Mikasa wrung her little hands together and swallowed, nodded her head.

“Mhm.”

“Oh. Interesting. Very interesting.” She scribbled on the notebook again, writing down her grown up teacher stuff. Mikasa smoothed out a strand of hair that poked out of her bun, feeling all eyes on her—especially the unique teal-green ones. “Can you tell us a fact about yourself?”

“Um…” Sunlight filtered in through the large windows. Specks of dust shimmered in the light. Mikasa thought of how they floated, how they danced…

“I taught myself how to dance ballet.”

“Really? That's so interesting!”

“Thank you.”

“You're the new student, aren't you?” Mrs. Ral was smiling. Her teeth were snowy white and complemented by the lovely features of her face. Her expression was soft and captivating. Marveling, Mikasa watched the way she ran her fingers through her strawberry blonde hair, how it fell just to her shoulders, how her lithe posture tilted as she shifted around to sit more comfortably on the desk. There was an ethereal air to her. She reminded Mikasa of a queen.

Linking her small fingers together over her lap, the girl answered. “Yes.”

“Did you hear that, kids? It's Mikasa's very first day here. Say, 'welcome to our school, Mikasa.'”

“Welcome to our school, Mikasa,” they all droned cohesively.

“Thank you,” she murmured to the group.

Mrs. Ral was still smiling. Her eyes were honey-colored and warm. Her gentle lips glistened with a sheen layer of lip gloss. Her eyelashes were coated with mascara and stuck out far, curving upwards like feathery arcs. Mikasa had never seen a grown up like her before. Her graceful aura reminded her of Mama.

“Is there anything you would like to say to the class?”

Mikasa shook her head. “No, ma'm.”

“No other fun facts about yourself? You're new. We could use the bonus.”

“Well, I really like chocolate.”

“That's so nice! Anything else?”

“I'm four feet, three inches tall.”

“You're taller than my daughter. Is there anything you like to do besides ballet?”

“I like to play with my dolls.”

“She still plays with dolls?” she heard a girl titter. Mikasa swallowed, trying very hard to ignore.

“Do you have a favorite one?”

“I'm sorry?”

“A favorite doll, honey. Do you have one?”

Her eyes shot to the whispering child, whom was smiling at her friend and giggling softly. Were kids not supposed to play with dolls? Did she say something funny? Why were those girls laughing?

Her eyes flickered to Eren.

He no longer chewed on the pink pencil. He stared at her. There wasn't any expression on his face. He was watching her so intently, Mikasa felt pinned by the weight of his gaze. When the kid behind him leaned forward to whisper something in his ear, Eren didn't even react to him.

The girl continued laughing with her friend. Mikasa swallowed. Every quiet _tee-hee-hee_ that came out of her shook her soul.

“No,” she voiced finally, “I don't have one,” even though she did. Ningyo had been her favorite doll since she was a baby. The thought of her mottled flesh and tattered hair made her think of home, which only worsened her feeling of uneasiness.

She thought of Mama's smiles.

Of Papa's thumbs up.

Of her deal with God.

“What else can you tell us about yourself, sweetie?” the teacher pushed, swinging her foot, cocking her head to one side. “Any cool skills? Can you whistle or roll your tongue?”

“No, I can't.”

“Then what can you do?”

“I know how to kill a duck.”

Gasps.

The entire classroom was a chorus of gasps—even Mrs. Ral gave a startled noise.

“Oh, wow.” The teacher held a hand to her chest. “Really?”

Everyone's eyes were wide. Everyone's except for Eren's.

“Yes...”

“How come you know how to, uh, do that?”

“My father hunts. He takes me with him sometimes.”

More gasps.

Eren was smiling now.

“Okaaaaaaaaay.” Mrs. Ral elongated the word, giving a nervous chuckle. “And, uh… where are you from?”

She glanced down at her hands, woven together on her knee-length skirt. Mikasa felt the tears begin to sting again after hearing another girl whisper, “Is she stupid?”

Why was the world so cruel?

“Maybe she is stupid.”

She felt ill with homesickness. She wanted nothing more than to be in Mama's arms.

“Yeah. I bet.”

She just wanted to go home.

“...I'm half Japanese,” she breathed, realizing suddenly that she was the only Asian in her class. This only made her feel even more terrible. She wished she could vanish. Into thin air, vanish. She stood naked before the entire class, so that when the kids all came together to spew out comments about her under their breaths, they induced the ultimate damage. She heard them, every single one. Every. Single. One. Their words were like fire balls being hurled across the room and straight at her.

Powerless, the small girl burned.

“She's a gook.”

“Ew.”

“I thought she was Chinese.”

“She doesn't look Chinese.”

“They all look the same to me.”

“That's mean.”

“What? It's true.”

“They all have funny names too.”

“She's named after a battleship.”

“Pffft! A battleship!”

“She's ugly.”

“All Asians are ugly. And short.”

“Look how puny she is.”

“I think she's pretty.”

“You're blind.”

“I like her hair.”

“She's a gook.”

“A gook? What's that?”

“I dunno. It's what Dad calls Asians.”

“I think it means chicken curry.”

“Chicken curry?”

“Yeah. Gook is chicken curry.”

“No, it's not, you weirdo.”

“Hey, that's a bad word.”

“Weirdo?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you guys shut the fuck up?”

“Eren, you cursed!”

“Well, your voice is annoying and you're bothering me. Be quiet.”

“I'm gonna tell my mom you said that.”

“Go ahead. I'll punch your face in.”

“Eren!”

“Hey, we're just kidding about the gook thing.”

“Chicken curry.”

“Shh.”

“Do you think she can hear us?”

“I don't know. She looks like she's about to cry.”

“That's funny.”

“I hope she does.”

“Jap tears.”

“Hey, that's racist.”

“What does racist mean?”

“Pffft. Jap tears.”

“Gook tears.”

“Chicken curry tears.”

They all laughed.

Mikasa closed her eyes.

Why was the world so cruel?

Devastated, she thought of Mama. Of her almond eyes, her silky black hair, her dainty pallor, her lithe fingers and long nails. The beauty she possessed so gracefully, the one she'd passed down to her with pride. She felt the tears welling in her eyes, her spirit trampled by the children's harshness. Did Mrs. Ral not hear them? Were their whispers not loud enough for her to catch? Mikasa felt them in her soul. They stung tremendously. They drew cracks on her heart. Gook. Jap. Ugly. Chicken Curry. Who knew children could be so mean? Kami had deserted her, it seemed. And so, biting down her quivering lip, she mustered her own strength and refused to allow the tears to fall. She wouldn't let them see her cry. She would not give them the satisfaction.

“And the other half?” Mrs. Ral asked calmly, as if time had stopped through the duration of the children's bickers and now it warped and resumed again. Mikasa didn't even look at her. Opening her eyes, she whispered quietly.

“Please, Mrs. Ral. I just want to sit.”

“Oh?” The teacher straightened, and the pause that followed was curious. She scrutinized Mikasa. For a second, she thought she'd even refuse her the right to sit. But she didn't. Mrs. Ral glanced down at her wristwatch and told her, “Alright. Thank you, Mikasa. You may take your seat.”

And so she did.

By the time her butt hit the flat surface of the chair, Mikasa's tears had chilled in her eyes. She didn't cry, which was good, but she felt the pieces of her heart fall off slowly, bit by bit, until finally there was nothing left of it anymore, and her gentle spirit seared with rage. It was not fair. She'd never done a bad thing to anybody. She didn't deserve this treatment from her peers. She relinquished her truce with God. She stared out the window, straight into the sun, not caring if she went blind or whatever. She watched the leaves turn on the trees outside, and pretended she could feel the breeze caress her skin, the sunlight warm her cheeks, the trees talking to her. She pretended she was in the woods, in her old home, petting animals and catching bugs and showing them to Papa. She pretended she could smell duck roasting in the oven, grass needles tickling the soles of her bare feet. Her toes wiggled in her school shoes. She pretended she could feel the weight of a crown on her head, a crown woven from her hands and made of flowers. Mikasa was good at making flower crowns. With a spiritual sigh, the young princess longed.

She missed her home.

She hated school.

She decided: after getting home, she'll convince her parents to take her out of private school. She never wanted to see these kids—or even Mrs. Ral—ever again. She'd demand to be home schooled for the rest of her life, and after eating dinner and refusing to eat her veggies, she would brush Ningyo’s hair, fix her into one of the dresses Mama had sewn for her, and then she'd let her rest on the pillow right next to her own, pull the blanket up to her chin so that she wouldn't get cold, kiss her goodnight, and go to sleep with the promise of a new day, a day which will never return to this atrocious place again.

With her new plan, Mikasa felt some small sense of relief. Yes. She would do it. She would rid herself of this place and focus solely on ballet.

She was smiling then. The tears were gone.

A new hope dawned inside of her. Mikasa stared out the window for so long that her neck began to cramp. She didn't think of where else she would care to look, for she'd leave this place behind anyway, so she continued to stare out at the sun—until suddenly she heard a familiar voice crow triumphantly, “Finally, it's my turn.”

Immediately, Mikasa turned her head.

Eren was scribbling on the chalkboard, drawing out his name in sharp, choppy letters, some tilting up, some tilting down, nodding drunkenly. His handwriting was hasty and messy. He wrote his name right next to hers, so that the disastrous _Eren Jager_ contrasted the elegant Mikasa Ackerman so much it left her in awe.

“My name— Wait. I missed a letter.”

He turned back around and drew an 'e' next to the 'a' in his last name. It was squished in there, barely decipherable, but his name now read Eren Jaeger. Mikasa blinked. Then blinked again. She'd stared at the sun for so long that black spots slid around in her vision. Still, she saw the way Eren then proceeded to turn around, how the whisper of a smirk consumed his lips and grew into a smile.

“My name is Eren Jaeger,” he grinned—with no dimple, Mikasa noticed, this time. “But all of you already knew that. My name has a pretty cool meaning, too, my mom says. It means, 'saint’, Don't laugh. I know it's very iconic.”

“Ironic,” Mrs. Ral corrected. Eren's mouth stayed open where she'd interrupted him. He blinked at her, bemused.

“Say what?”

“Ironic,” she repeated. “The word you're looking for is ironic, Eren. Not iconic.”

“Right. Thank you.” He cleared his throat, and the way he stood, the way he spoke, it was like he was going a hundred miles per second. At least, that's how Mikasa felt it was. His voice made her feel dizzy. Each breath he took in before talking drew her attention solely onto him. She eyed him the entire time he spoke, each word spilling out of him freely and candidly. He didn't seem nervous at all. All eyes were on him and still he was comfortable. He welcomed all the gazes, the way airports welcome planes before they land.

“Anyway,” the boy continued. A hundred miles per hour. A dizzying effect. “I like to draw and I'm trying to teach myself how to play the guitar but most days it doesn't go the way I want it to. I kinda suck at it.”

“Language, Eren.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Ral. My favorite food is pizza with extra cheese. I can't kill a duck but I'm pretty good at soccer so I guess that's cool too. Also, I can whistle really loud. _Tweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!_ That's my whistle. I can't roll my tongue, though. I don't really know how tall I am but last time I checked, I was the tallest kid in this class.”

“No, you're not!” a kid objected.

“Shut up. I'm still taller than you.”

“Eren, be nice.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Ral. My parents are both of German descent, which makes me full German or something. Not that I know how to speak German. I just know how to say 'I love you. _Ich liebe dich._ Cool, huh? I heard Dad say it once to Mom, which is gross. Also, _dummkopf_ means idiot.”

“Language.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Ral. Also, I know how to say a few words in Japanese but not much. And French. I think languages are awesome. Speaking of Germany, I hear the best chocolate comes from that place. But I think chocolate's nasty. I hate it. It makes me sick.”

“Wow, Eren. That's a lot of information you're giving us today.”

“Thanks. I know.”

“What's the occasion?”

He sighed a bit dramatically, swiping his bangs out of his eyes. “Well, you see...”

Suddenly, his eyes were on Mikasa.

She froze.

“I saw what you did to the new girl today,” Eren voiced, now a bit sheepish, which was new, “and I think it's only fair that if she has to say so much about herself for us to get to know her, then we should do the same for her. That way, she gets to know us too.”

“That's… an interesting point, Eren.”

His eyes were off of her.

Mikasa breathed again.

“Thanks. I know.”

“Anything else?”

“I tried ballet once. Broke my knee.”

“Eren...”

“Okay, that was a lie,” he laughed. A fruity laugh. “But I just thought that it'd be funny. Imagine me in a tutu!”

“Take your seat, kid.”

“Of course.”

He trotted over to his chair. The children murmured. The teacher chuckled then sighed. The one up next stood up, said their name, drew it on the chalkboard. The monotony of the day continued but within Mikasa, something stirred.

She realized.

He just answered all the questions that were asked to her.

He answered them all and even poked fun at himself so that she would feel less embarrassed. Was it kindness? Did he really need to say all of that out loud? By the looks of it, everyone in this classroom already knew him. All that information wasn't necessary. Did he really just stand in front of everyone and say all those things for her ? To make her feel better? For her to know him? What?

Mikasa pondered.

Should she be flattered?

Should she be offended?

How was she supposed to feel?

Tentatively, Mikasa turned her head and peered over her shoulder to where Eren sat, chewing on his pink pencil, already staring at her. For a moment, she held his gaze, debating whether she should make some sort of gesture to thank him, or even scold him.

_“It was nice to meet you, Ackerman!”_

Suddenly, it dawned on her that he already knew her last name. In a sense, she was bound to him more than to the others already just for that. And then he'd gone along and done that.

As a nine-year-old, Mikasa had a lot of thoughts. They clouded her judgment sometimes. This was one of those times. She turned and looked away from him.

Staring out at the sun again, she thought of the way princes sometimes save their princesses. It's not always done on horseback, in glistening armors, with thrashing swords and skyward cries of victories. Sometimes, it is done humbly and in secrecy. With a joke. With a smile. With all the gentleness in the world.

She turned again to look at Eren.

He wasn't looking at her. She waited until he was.

When his green eyes with the blue undertone and specks of fire finally met hers, she smiled at him. He smiled at her. His dimple flashed. She turned back around, felt a hiccup in her heart.

It wasn't much, but, for now, it was her way of saying thank you. She told Kami that the truce still stood. Tonight, she was eating all her veggies. All of them.

Even the peas.


	7. Baby, It's Cold Outside

It is incredibly draining.

Her eyes, although closed, do not fail to see the events that take place in her mind. Within dreams, Mikasa wanders. Her feet land on familiar floors, wooden thumps that echo in the farthest depths of her consciousness. The walls, pale and pastel, feel of childhood and of home. The air carries the smell of her mother's hair, her father's most recent kill roasting in the fire. And because the two scents combine into a soothing sort of fragrance, her steps are lured to the small kitchen of their house, only to find no trace of her mother, nothing cooking in the fire, no flames to smoke or roast. Still, the vestiges of use remain all around her, as if someone had been there just moments ago. She's late, that's all. In the fire pit, embers whisper their final glows before dying.

Suddenly, she's somewhere else.

If she were to reach out her hand, she would feel it: the texture of the stucco walls of the basement, where Mama sits to sew and hum quietly to herself, where Papa likes to lounge and simply watch her. If she were to look closer, she would see it: the shimmer in his steely eyes as he marvels at his wife, the crinkles that form by their corners when he smiles at something she says. If she were to speak, she'd call out to both of them and turn their heads, make them look at her, see their smirks grow into smiles and the silence break with a soft utterance of her name.

_Welcome home, Mikasa._

Welcome home.

But her hand reaches out to find rumpled bed sheets instead. Her eyes open to meet the dull blur of a gray morning, an empty apartment, a deserted space beside her on the bed. She moves. Only to turn away from the light of day and pull the sheets over her head to fend off the loneliness.

It's Christmas today.

And Jean, of course, is working.

It is incredibly draining. To have these dreams, to long for their reality, to reach out to specters that feel too perfect only to wake up and remember the reality of her life. Yesterday, it had been Armin. Today, it's Mom and Dad. Countless mornings before that, it'd been a low, husky voice breathing words that would abandon her as soon as she bolted to a wake, her spirit buzzing in the aftermath as she stared vacantly ahead. Seconds. That's all it took for her to know who had been talking to her in her sleep. 

Eren dreams are the absolute worst.

Just the same day she'd gotten back from his apartment, her mind had done a pretty fine job of keeping the memory of him at bay. Pretending. Mikasa was good at that. She pretended not to see, not to feel, not to hear all the tiny things around her that brought him sprinting to her mind. The color blue, or green, or gold; warm smells like incense or woolen clothing. Walking home, she'd avoided cafes and anything that could possibly contain the smell of coffee. Or chocolate. She'd pulled her scarf up to her nose and breathed through it, but even that held a tinge of his sweetness, his home.

She couldn't pull him off of her. For the life of her, she could not. She’d feel his scent on her clothes and hair, the rim of his mug against her lips even when nothing but her lip gloss touched them, the earthy tones of his apartment reaching out to grab her through the snow. And how fortunate she was that it was winter, that smells hardly loitered in the air and everything around was either gray or white or covered in ice. Her surroundings held no trace of him and yet he flickered momentarily, like fathomed shards that materialized to visit her and then swiftly melt away.

Okay, so maybe she didn't do that great of a job at keeping him out of her mind, but she did try. Very hard, she did. She'd even gone shopping, for what it's worth, picking out some random object before hauling a cab straight home. And when she showed up with the Victoria's Secret bag hanging from an elbow, greeted Jean and recited the events of her day, she'd even hushed the tiny whisper of her conscience. _Here you go, lying to him again_. Mikasa had promptly reminded her inner voice to cork it.

 _"I saw you took the credit card,"_ he'd told her.

_"I bought something on the way here."_

_"Can I see?"_

And you wouldn’t believe the look on his face—both their faces, really—when what she pulled out of the bag was a flimsy g-string that made every nuance in her being wail in fright. The thing was tinier than the palm of her hand, and, gaping as it dangled from her fingers and before her fiancé's (also gaping) face, her rankled brain scrambled for an explanation as to how the heck—and just _what_ the heck she had been thinking to pick out something like that. Perhaps it was the sudden craze of it all, what with seeing Eren again in full light for the first time in almost six years, her usually-trained thoughts were bound to suffer some consequences. But who in their right mind would purchase a thing like that? The contraption was nothing more than a triangle with strings. Imagine the giant gulp she took when she realized that one of them was supposed to go in between her ass cheeks.

 _"Whoa."_ Even Jean seemed slightly terrified of it. _"That's… new."_

A nervous chuckle had fleeted out of her, and as if the situation wasn't already embarrassing enough, she realized suddenly that it was a bright, resounding shade of pink. Like Pepto Bismol pink. Every inch (barely) of that thing screamed certain torture.

_"I didn't know you wore underwear like that."_

Neither did she.

 _"I just thought I could try something different?"_ Lie. To be honest, nothing could be further from the truth. It certainly wasn't even her size. The triangle shape (which she supposed was there to cover her crotch area) looked like it could potentially do only half of its job. Gosh. Nothing could be more displeasing to the imagination's eye. She would never wish such a fate upon anyone. So then why the everliving crud did she _buy_ it for herself?

Eren had a beautiful way of rendering her senseless. And stupid. And dumb.

It took Jean a few seconds to fully gauge the thing. And once he took it in his hands, stretched it out to see it completely, a half-grin took his lips and he peered down at his flushing fiancée.

_"You should wear these tonight."_

Rest in peace, butt crack.

With a drowsy smile, Mikasa runs her fingers down his spot on the bed. The sheets are cold, his body having long abandoned them. They susurrate against her touch, rustling as she crumples up a bunch in her hand.

And then, just as quickly, this small pocket of serenity ends.

Grimly, she's reminded that reality is despondent. There's going to be a party later on tonight, and Jean plans to take her. Jiji should be fine enough without them. They will not be gone for long.

In her mind, she prepares herself for the events of this dreadful day: cleaning, more cleaning, some aimless laying about and a healthy conversation with their cat. She will be a good fiancée, dress up all pretty for her man, greet him with a kiss and a smile and exclaim her excitement for the evening that is to come, how much she loves his friends and his mother, how good they all are to her. It's not a lie if it's acting. There is something to be accomplished, a truth to be told, elaborated through a different method, that's all. Curling into a little ball, she reminds herself:

She will be a good fiancée.

She will be a good wife.

She will be a good mother.

She will be _happy._

There's a point to every day, a purpose to why the daylight pours in adamantly through the curtains, why Jiji meows for her to feed him, why her lungs hurt but there's still oxygen coursing through them, life reverberating, pounding in her chest. She has her plan set out before her. She's etched her future into stone. There's a point. There's a purpose.

But she feels she’s somewhat forgotten it. Or in the very least, like she’s given up on a lie.

Jiji doesn't have to meow more than twice today. Tired, submissive, Mikasa brings herself to stand. The carpet in their room is soft under her feet, the hardwood floors of their living room smooth, the tiles of their kitchen floor frigid. She feels it all but even then it's like she's floating. Do her limbs move by themselves? Does her body no longer function by command but more upon instinct, the way a heart beats and eyelids blink automatically without the mind's consent? Who knows? Who cares? She feeds their cat, crouches down to watch him, runs her fingers through her mussed hair.

With every snowless Christmas, comes a great degree of pain. That, too, is incredibly draining.

Closing her eyes, Mikasa thinks of home: of stucco walls and smirks that flourish into smiles; of shimmering eyes and the soft thrum of lullabies. Mama's voice. Papa. Small hands ripping wrappers off of presents and exclaiming in delight. Christmas music bouncing in the air and dancing in their muscles. Everything being safe. Everything being simple and innocent and safe.

Her butt's the first to hit the cold tiles, then the back of her thighs, her calves, the heels of her feet, her shoulder blades, her head. She has a wedgie. Of course. And her butt cheeks press against the tiled floor which, okay, is _really_ friggin' cold and makes goosebumps rise on her skin and harden her nipples against the fabric of her fiancé's t-shirt—which she wears, pathetically enough, with much sadness, clinging somehow to his presence through the scarcity of his scent. It smells just like him—and not cologne-showered, gel-slathered him, but _him_ him. Like his hair. Like his skin. Like the man she loves and is going to marry.

She will be a good fiancée.

She will be a good wife.

She will be a good mother.

She. Will. Be. Happy.

But an inexplicable emptiness erodes her fortitude now, in this very moment, this very minute, regardless of the future they have planned. And when her eyes close, long hair splayed around her head on the floor, sides billowing with an inhale, panties digging into her ass, Mikasa sees it.

Green.

Blue.

Gold.

And then _scars_.

Splayed across a broad chest randomly like flecks of fire splattered on by the swift flick of a paintbrush, gashing and burning themselves into permanent existence, some even trickling down to the taut ripples of abdomen, all of them like shooting stars forever frozen into place. A large one on a right palm. A tiny one on a bicep. A faded one just above a brow. Veins that run like rivulets in tan skin, and the single thick one that protrudes the muscled length of an upper arm. And when she takes a deep breath, she smells it.

Pine.

Lemon.

Wood.

Earthy, citrusy, organic. _Him._

Old spice. Coffee. Chocolate. Books. Just oxygen in general is filled with him, damn it. Mikasa runs her hands down her face, sighing. Does the past have a smell? Is a single man ample to bottle it all up? Are scarred hands enough to hold the foundation of years of her life that will never return to her? Is half of her childhood, and more, all woven into the patterns of two teal-green eyes? When will anything around her make any damn sense anymore?

Memories dance like shadows in her vision, and when her lips part to speak, they call out to no one. "Fuck," she breathes. Yeah. Fuck. A crude, harsh word she hasn't uttered in forever. Her tummy ripples with a drop of excitement. What a rebel she's being. She spends one day with Eren, and now look at what she's become.

"Fuck," she says again, only louder, more daring, more free. "Fuck. Fuck! FUCK!"

Then she's snorting. Giggling. Covering her mouth and wriggling around. Jiji purrs as he walks around her head, giving her a cavalier look like the one Hitch had offered when she'd answered Eren's door. Before her mind can transfix itself on that day again, on the rich taste of hot chocolate that still tingles on her tongue and the hands that framed her own and pushed a book closer to her body, Jiji darts off to the other room, leaves the plate of cat food unfinished.

"Well," she tells him, even though he's far away, "fuck you too."

**—o—**

"Agh, fuck!"

"You're getting rusty, Jaeger."

"Ow. Okay, ow."

"Cacaw?"

"In your drea— OW!"

"Say it."

"N-no— OW! SHIT! OKAY!"

"Say it."

"Cacaw. Cacaw."

"Louder."

"Annie, fucking _fuck!_ "

"Hm?"

"Stop being so— AH! I said CACAW!"

Reiner snorts, bringing a water bottle up to his lips for a sip. Wiping his mouth with the edge of his wrist, he muses over the sight before him. He's about to down a second gulp when he hears someone approaching from behind.

"Who's the bird?" Ymir asks him, reaching to take the bottle from his hands. He gives her a look, but she steals a large swig of his drink anyway, probably because she forgot to bring her own, knowing her.

"Eren."

"Of course, he is." She breathes after her second or third gulp, handing the bottle back to its owner. "Why is he making bird noises, though?"

"It's the safe word he chose for when he's in too much pain."

Ymir scoffs. "Idiot."

They watch as Annie twists his arm further up his back, pulling a sharp hiss and an "Ah-ha-ow!" out of him. It's great, because she's like, half the man's size and yet she has him pinned face-down to the ground, holding him still with nothing but her knee at the small of his back and his arm bent right behind him. With his cheek pressed to the matted floor, Eren's features contort in his misery.

"Hey!" Reiner calls, cupping his hands around his mouth. "Go easy on him, Annie!" The only reply he receives is another cry of agony.

"To think she's still recovering from that boxing injury," Ymir notes, wiping the sweat off her forehead with her shirt sleeve.

Reiner shakes his head in mild astonishment. "He's one of the best fighters here, and he gets beaten into making bird noises by a girl with a broken wrist."

"Who's even smaller than mister dwarf man over there," she points a finger at Connie, who's quick to flip her off. Every curse word known to man has been hissed and spat by Eren, who's practically crying into the mat and writhing helplessly under Annie’s tiny weight. He manages to slip out of her hold somewhat, but she tightens her grip and makes him pay for it, costing him another cry of pain.

"I'm a good man," he laments with a sob. "I don't deserve this."

Reiner calls out again. "Annie! You'll break his arm!" but what this does is make her raise her head to look at them, her blonde fringe framing her eyes. With a sigh, Ymir gestures for Reiner to go help the poor man out.

All he has to do is tap Annie on the shoulder for her to relinquish her grip on Eren's arm and lift her knee off his backside. Immediately, he sags onto the floor with a borderline pornographic moan of relief. He's face-down, for real now, his imperceptible whines so muffled and abstruse that even Annie has to fight the faintest of smiles.

"Oh, come on, Jaeger," Reiner teases, nudging him with his shoe. "What happened to 'I bet I can kick your ass in twenty seconds flat'?"

A groan is all he answers with, turning to lay on his back. "Shut up," Eren spits, cradling his face in his hands. Both Annie and Reiner smirk down at him, and after telling her that he's glad to have her back with them again, Reiner goes his own way, leaving her alone with a panting, sweaty Eren.

She waits patiently for him to catch his breath, re-doing her ponytail and swiping her bangs out of her face. Both hands hoisted on her hips, she peers down at him. And even though she's small in stature, having him there like that, gasping for air and covering his face by her feet, makes her ego inflate, makes her feel like a giant.

"Hopefully, this will teach you never to underestimate me again," she bends forward, offering him her good hand. All he does is glare at her and slap it away.

"You cheated."

"Did not."

"I said cacaw like fifty times!"

"I didn't hear you."

"Ugh."

She watches him throw his arms out to the sides, laying on the mat like a child about to make a snow angel. His chest swells and sinks with his breaths, and she skims her gaze over the sweat stain on his t-shirt, how it moistens a patch on the fabric and melts from his neckline down to his sternum. With his eyes closed and lips parted, he kinda looks like a little kid—especially with the way his cheeks burn bright pink and sweat sticks his hair to his forehead. She'd never noticed before, but his eyelashes are unnaturally long. Now that she sees him like this, when he's not talking fifty miles an hour or goofing around, she can gauge his features a lot better.

Annie clears her throat.

"Get up."

"No."

"Eren, it's time to go. They'll close the place on us."

He only sighs. Shakes his head.

"Fine," Annie shrugs, but before she can turn to leave, Eren senses her movements and tells her to wait for him. Reluctant, she does as he says.

His lids unveil a striking pair of iridescent blues, and she'd never noticed just how much color there is to his eyes until now. Perhaps it's just because she hasn't seen him in a few weeks due to recovering from an injury, or because she's not used to seeing him from this angle, or something's changed in him, or who knows what. But she catches little snips of him she never noticed before, even though she's known him for over four years now.

"Hold on." He's breathing more evenly now, but he still slaps a hand on his chest with a wheeze as if he were trying to steady his heart. Annie tries not to roll her eyes at him. Drama queen. "Help me up."

So she does, but all he's willing to do right now is sit upright and smile when she complains. They're both dirty, and sweaty, and in desperate need of a shower, but he gestures for her to take a seat beside him, insisting when she says no. Honestly, if it weren't for the fact that she owes him so much, she probably wouldn't put up with half the crap he pulls on her.

"What?" she drones, taking her place beside him.

"Just thought we should talk for a bit."

"Can't it wait till we're clean?"

"Uh…" he untangles the tie around his hair, and the bistre strands falling free to frame his face before he combs his fingers through them to push them back up again. "No."

Now that his hair's out of his face, he looks much older, like the Eren she knows. And because he hasn't shaved yet, his stubble makes a faint scratchy sound when he runs a hand down his face, hissing before clutching his forearm.

"How's your arm?"

"Sore," he complains, rubbing his bicep and rolling his shoulder so that it pops. Once it does, he winces, and Annie fights the urge to ask if he's okay. It's not like her to be soft, but sometimes when she's around him, he elicits a degree of kindness from her she's not even sure she actually possesses. She clears her throat, and he shoots her a sideways glance, eyeing the brace around her wrist with an ambiguous expression. "How's your wrist?"

"Getting better."

"How'd you sprain it?"

Annie pulls her legs up to rest her chin on her knees, wrapping her arms around herself. "I told you," her voice is toneless. "I boxed without gloves on and pulled a punch the wrong way."

"Mmm." Eren's gaze is trained on her wrist, and she fears he'll insist on pressing the topic. But he doesn't. He just shrugs and replies, with equal tonelessness, "Okay."

Annie's not one for conversation, never really knowing what to say. Yet, seeing Eren nurse his arm, she briefly entertains the thought of apologizing. But again, she holds her tongue. The task seems too vulnerable and personal. So instead, she comes up with something else, something safer.

"You going to the party tonight?"

"Yep," he nods. "You?"

"Don't think so."

"Aw, why not? Come on, Annie. We all miss you."

"Maybe for New Year's. Christmas isn't really my thing."

"Right. Forgot. You're Jewish."

"I’m an atheist."

"Right. Knew that." He runs his fingers through his hair a couple of times to pull it back into a tidier ponytail, but halfway through his efforts the band snaps. He curses loudly, but before he can overreact, she offers him the spare around her good wrist and he thanks her. "You know, Annie, you can be an atheist and still celebrate Christmas."

"You're just saying that because Christmas equals food and presents."

"And parties," he grins, handling her hair tie behind his skull. Annie shakes her head, catching the scent of his sweat mixed with his deodorant. As weird as it sounds, the smell is oddly pleasing somehow. Kinda like how a baby's head smells really nice. It's just weirdly comforting in a way.

"What?" he asks, noticing her expression. "Parties are fun."

"They're full of… people."

Eren gasps, slapping a hand on his cheek. "Oh, no. Not people!"

"Stop."

"Living organisms who breathe and talk just like you, oh no! Annie! Annie, you poor thing!"

She sighs. Never mind. He's still annoying.

"Please come. Please? I don't want to be there without you."

"The party's right next door to your place, Eren. Just go home if it gets boring."

"But everyone's gonna be there! What do I tell them when they ask for you?"

"That I hate them."

He rolls his eyes, a dramatic turn of teal-green that nearly lulls to the back of his head. "They already know that."

"Well, then." Annie tucks her bangs behind her ears, but they're too short, so they curtain over her face again anyway. Her sweat's starting to chill on her skin, which feels kinda gross, but Eren's staring straight ahead in silence for some reason, drumming his fingers on his knee. She's known him long enough to read the expression on his face. He wants to say something.

This is bad.

Knowing him, he'll sputter it out eventually, though, one way or another. So she waits, trailing her gaze over the stray hairs that missed his ponytail, the ones sticking to the nape of his neck with sweat. Surely enough, after a few seconds, he turns to look at her and speaks.

"Actually, there's a huge favor I need to ask of you."

"What?"

"Would you be my girlfriend?"

Annie promptly punches him in the face.

**—o—**

Clean is an understatement.

Their apartment is so immaculate, even Jiji slips a couple of times over the polished hardwood floors—but maybe that's just because he's always sprinting to his destinations. Still, Mikasa would be lying if she said she didn't chuckle when he nearly slid face-first into a wall because of his frantic racing. He hasn't gotten his head stuck in anything today, though, at least.

Around noon, she goes out for her appointment at a nearby beauty salon. No manicures today, just waxing. Waxing is an understatement too. Ripping your soul out of your body through every aching, bleeding pore, more like. The body parts which endure such torture need not be named. Needless to say, it takes every ounce of grace within Mikasa not to waddle her way out of the salon, not to shout profanities when passing eyes seem to cling to her strange new gait. 

_There is fire between my legs_ , she seethes internally at them. _I'm on friggin’ fire._

Once back at home, after a nice hot bath, the pain subsides. With her hair up in a towel, she sits atop the toilet tank, her feet on the toilet seat lid. Leaning over, she paints her toenails, applying the nail polish one meticulous brush stroke at a time. She can't do any pretty squiggly designs like the girls at the salon she frequents, but painting within the lines is easy enough. It's when she has to let go of the book she's reading in between drying times to paint her fingernails that she really struggles.

The left hand isn't all that bad, but painting the right one is a pain. She's right-handed, so her less predominant hand trembles slightly while she aims all her focus into applying the color as cleanly as she can. She gives so much of her concentration that her tongue pokes out a little by the corner of her mouth.

Once that's done, it's waiting time. As she waits for her nails to dry, she crosses her legs, props an elbow on her thigh, perches her chin on the palm of her hand. The apartment is so quiet. She wishes she would've procured turning on the TV or putting on some music or something. There's no noise. Just the quiet sound of Jiji purring in his sleep and the thoughts that rattle in her brain with resounding clamor.

So, to distract herself, she hums.

Deep in her throat, songs her mother taught her. She closes her eyes, swinging a foot back and forth gently with her music. When she inhales through her nose to regain her breath, the poignant smell of the nail polish stings her nostrils. She pretends the smell is her mother's instead; pretends that she's breathing through smaller lungs, peering down at tiny toenails, small toes that wiggle as soon as her mother's done applying a soft, rosy paint. _Not too much_ , she tells her. If she wiggles her toes too fast, she'll ruin her nail polish.

So she keeps humming.

"Hmm, hmm, hmm…"

_And the pink tip of her tongue poked out from the corner of her mouth, where her lips curled with concentration once it was her turn to paint her mother's nails. Toes were always tricky for Mikasa. Trickier than hands. Sometimes, she painted outside the lines and colored Mama's skin. Still, no matter how smudged or clumsy, she never failed to gasp loudly and declare that she'd done a wonderful job. "They look beautiful," she told her with a peck on the nose. "You did great."_

"…Hm-hm-hm… hmm, hm-hmm..."

_Her alabaster neck stretched out long, pride filling her eyes as she gazed down at her daughter and cupped her chin to lift it high. She called her beautiful, like she always did, and smoothed a tendril of damp hair away from her face. The door suddenly burst open with a violent boom. The two towel-wrapped females jumped, exclaiming in surprise. Then Papa shouted, "What are you two doing?!" and Mama hurled the shampoo bottle at him to make him pay for the scare._

"…Hmm, hmm… hmm, hmm…"

_And they laughed. They laughed when the thing hit him in the head with a solid plonk. His eyes grew so wide, Mikasa threw her head back with a wild fit of laughter that nearly sent her tumbling back into the tub. Mama, sitting on the toilet, dodged Papa's apologetic kisses and tried swatting him away, ruining her nail polish in the process. Mikasa doubled over, trying not to wheeze. Her parents would join in on her laughter. Giggling, she'd shield her face from their questioning stares. Papa's face was just too funny. They'd never get the joke._

"…Hmm… hmm…"

Then she stops.

Because now there's something… clawing at her throat. It hurts, like her esophagus is twisting into knots. Swallowing tightly, she gazes down at her nails, checks if they're dry enough for the day to continue. They're not. They glisten with wetness. A dark, crimson color. A far cry from the pinkness of her childhood and her mother's toes.

Is this what growing up has done to her?

Vibrancy has waned and shades dimmed and shadows turned pale and flickery. Everything's lost its color. Things that meant the world before mean nothing now. Things that never provoked a blink of worry now induce long nights of sleeplessness. Pink has turned to blood red and voiced songs are merely hummed now. Even the ring around her finger—the more she looks at it, seems tainted by her adultness and loses more of its sheen. Nine-year-old Mikasa would be very disappointed at all this, at what she's made of herself.

At what point did it all start? At what age was it that things began to lose their luster and magic dwindled into skepticism? Once upon a time, anything was possible. Now, everything has changed. A twenty-five year old heart bemoans the greatness it once was, a tarnished spirit longs for its old purity.

Maybe that is why she clings so much to the past. Back then, things made perfect sense. Right now, even the silence around her is filled with a tinge of madness. She'll drive herself crazy one of these days. She'll think herself into insanity, at the rate she's going. Silence isn’t peaceful anymore, and neither is a bustling sea of noise. Company or not, she's constantly being tugged this way and that and no matter what, no matter what she tells herself, no matter how hard she tries to calm it all down, there's always that point in which this inner turmoil rips wide open, and all the ugliness the years have brought her bleed out. She's her own worst enemy. Nothing destroys her the way she destroys herself.

With a small breath, Mikasa reaches over for the book she set aside on the sink, desperate for another distraction. It's _Illusions,_ the book Eren let her borrow. And it smells like him. Like his home. The pages rich with lore and memory.

Slowly, she opens the small book, careful not to get any nail polish on it. As soon as the pages spread open, her gaze is met with some fluorescent streaks upon the worn, sepia paper.

Eren's little highlights on random bits of the book.

The sight pulls a smile from her lips, however faint, and a warm fondness spreads inside her heart. He must've read this book about a thousand times. Through his life, she's known him to own several copies. So the fact that she ended up with one whose pages are bent and worn and highlighted makes her feel, perhaps, special in a way. Like he gave her a personal relic of his being. Funny how books can carry so much of a person.

She started re-reading the book only yesterday, having put it off due to feelings of dread but eventually capitulating out of both curiosity and boredom. Armin used to say that you never read a book the same way twice. Mikasa herself has lost count of how many times she's scoured the novel's pages in search of the new, cultivating from the old something fresh and fulfilling. But its 192 pages can only offer her so much.

She always thought it funny that a book so simple and small could be Armin's very favorite, since the boy was famous for memorizing entire chunks of encyclopedias and reciting them by heart. In her whole life, she's never known anyone more fond of books than Armin. Books were his aliment, and he was always starving, craving more. To crown _Illusions_ as the sole greatest piece of fiction he'd ever come across, was like a carnivore calling vegetables the greatest sustenance.

Oh, how much he'd talked about that damn book. So much so that eventually both Eren and Mikasa caved in and gave it a shot. Eren wasn't really all that impressed with it, she remembers. Mikasa had thought it delivering at best. But Armin clung on to its fruits like an emaciated child. It wasn't until years later that they both learned to do the same.

And now it's sort of their thing, this book. The band that ties them all together even though they're far apart.

Flipping through the pages, she scans for traces of Eren's handwriting or stains of use. She doesn't really find any, only highlights and squiggles and the occasional doodle on a random page or two. Still, she admires them, marveling at the timeless marks. How old was he when he'd made them? What was going on in his life? Where was he? What was he doing? What were his thoughts?

She can almost make out the features of his face frowning in concentration, the reading glasses that he always hates to wear fixed over his eyes, his fingers coiling around a highlighter to drag it over words that impact him most. Did he have the scar on his palm before or after reading this particular book? She can't tell. The neat, neon lines indicate that either they were drawn during a time when it wasn't there, or when it had healed completely. The pages give hints of long years of good use. It's impossible to guess whether those years amount to six or less or even more.

Mikasa's gaze drifts to a blank point in space.

It's Christmas today.

That means that exactly six years ago today, she left him.

She closes her eyes, sighing with the realization. No more. No more thinking. Why can't her mind just be still and leave her in peace for once? Uneasiness grows rapidly within her. Then panic. Then dread. So much dread. She's always feeling dread. Why must she be alone today? Why _must_ Jean be at work? Why can't she be with Armin and her parents and her loved ones and be safe? Why? 

_Stop it._

Stop it, Mikasa. Stop it right now.

Clenching her jaw, she trains herself into a state of practiced numbness. She's had to do that a lot lately, she notices. Like when she was with Eren and had to run to his bathroom after mere minutes of being with him to calm herself down. She breathes, counts to ten, then holds her breath and starts all over. She does this until she's the master of herself again, and her emotions no longer rule her. Only then does she dare to open her eyes again. Even the darkness behind her own eyelids haunts her nowadays.

With a deep inhale, she swallows a large gulp of the book's smell. Earthy, citrusy, organic. Old pages and old friends. The tale of a messiah that refuses to fulfill his role because he believes people have the capability of saving themselves. An atheist's favorite book. Her window to the past and who she wishes she was in the present. All of it contained in a single body, a single book. And before the clawing in her throat can begin to resurface, there's the rattling of keys and heeled footsteps on hardwood floors, a call of her name that makes her heart lurch and her feet hop to the ground with an elated start.

Jean is home.

**—o—**

God only knows why she agreed to do it, but she did. The frozen water bottle he holds to his cheek stings him nearly as bad as his arm does. Maybe Annie just felt bad for causing him so much pain today and thus surrendered and said yes to playing his girlfriend—but not until she had him sputtering an explanation to the matted floor with his arm bent behind him. Again.

Women are far too unpredictable. He knows Annie. He knows her well. But even four years of friendship aren't enough to prepare him for one of her fists flying straight to his face. Groaning, he slides the icy plastic of the bottle down his cheek, pulling Annie's gaze to him.

"So about this girlfriend thing," she tells him, twisting her damp hair into a bun. They're both showered now and clean—but Annie didn't want to let him go yet, asking him to meet her outside the locker room where the refreshments bar is at. He sits on the countertop, his duffel bag plopped on the floor below his dangling feet, peering at her from the corner of his eyes as she stuffs her hands into the pockets of her hoodie.

"Mhm," he prompts for her to continue. She's quiet for a second, attempting to smooth her fringe out of her face but it finds its way over her eyes again.

"It's only while we're around her, right?" her tone is tinged with a drop of worry. Maybe she really does feel guilty for punching him and nearly dislocating his arm. Maybe she's just apprehensive about the whole ordeal of pretending to be his lover. The latter is perfectly understandable, he must admit.

"Oh, yeah," Eren nods, wincing when the water bottle digs into his bruise. "It's just while we're around her, that's all."

"What about the others?"

"I'll tell 'em. They'll play along, I know they will."

Annie's quiet again. Staring out into space. Frowning—but that's just her face, really. She's got that sort of neutral expression that gives the impression that she's either awfully bored or terribly pissed at something.

"Do I have to kiss you?" For a second, he thinks she's joking. But the stern look in her eyes indicates she's not.

"No-ho," he laughs, slightly taken aback by the question. "No, Annie. I wouldn't do that to you."

"Hold hands?"

"Nope."

"So nothing lovey-dovey."

"Just stare into my eyes like they're the most beautiful thing you've ever seen and we should be set."

"You're ridiculous." She sighs, shaking her head. "This isn't going to work, you know."

Eren sighs too, pulling the bottle away from his face. The whole right side of his cheek feels numb now, tears of frigid water trickling down the warmth of his cheek before he dabs it away with his shirt sleeve. 

"It will," he assures her. "Trust me. I know her. I know how this girl works."

"You really think everyone will help?"

"Yep."

"Even Hitch?"

"Even Hitch."

"I highly doubt that."

He holds a finger in the air, piercing her gaze with his own. He looks awfully chipper for a man who just got punched in the face.

"I have a plan."

"Oh, no." Annie shrugs when he glares at her. "I'm just saying, Eren. Every time you have a plan, things usually don't end well."

"Okay, well, this one's gonna work."

She doesn't really know what to say to him, so she eyes the red mark on his cheek. Guilt is an emotion she tends to try hard not to feel. But she's got to admit, maybe socking him one was a little uncalled for. She couldn't help that it's been drilled into her reflexes to react defensively when abrupt advances are made. But this is Eren, her friend Eren. He would never do anything to take advantage of her and she knows it.

Perhaps it's that underlying feeling of faint (very faint, okay) guilt that pushes her to make his presence linger, or perhaps it's the simple loneliness that comes with Christmas day, but she keeps talking; for the sake of keeping him around a bit more, for the sake of figuring out what's going on inside that mind of his.

"Hitch texted me the other day talking about her." It's not a lie. But she didn't have good things to say about the girl either, so perhaps mentioning this wasn't the wisest choice.

But it makes his eyes dart to her face. He speaks with the excitement of a child when he asks, "She did?"

"Yeah."

"What did she say?"

"That some random girl showed up at your place and you kicked her out because of that. Oh, and that you're pretending not to have a phone around her for some reason."

On her end, the air's starting to feel a little unsafe and awkward, like she's meddling with his personal affairs. But Eren sets his gaze downcast, breathing out a chuckle. He's weirdly cheery today. Sorta. Definitely a lot more alive than she's used to seeing him, anyway.

"Yup."

"Why?" She can't help it. Curiosity seems to get the best of her today.

"To lure her into coming to my apartment," he admits, shrugging. "That way she has an address, not a phone number, and the only way she can find me is by seeking me out herself. Anyways, it worked, so…"

"So you're playing her."

"I am not," he doesn't even seem offended by her comment.

"What's she like?"

And there's that kid-like excitement in his eyes again, that vibrancy in his voice that makes him sound ten years younger.

"The girl?"

"Yeah."

"Ohhhhh, man.”

Sometimes, Eren doesn't really have a filter. Okay, no, that's all the time. But some times are worse than others. He talks and talks and doesn't shut up until you stop him, words spewing out of him the instant they pop into his mind. Usually, this only happens when he's unnaturally passionate about something. But Eren is a passionate man, and when things move him, they move him deeply. Annie, however austere, can be patient with him at times. So when he blurts out a speech, she listens in with mild reverence.

"She's unlike anything," Eren starts, and the second of silence that follows is as fleeting as his little scoff of mild elation. "She's like, such an odd mixture of things, Annie. I don't even know. Like, she's quiet and somber but at the same time she gets these bouts of talkativeness where she doesn't shut up. Then she gets embarrassed afterward and recoils into herself like she regrets giving away so much. Her sense of humor is the weirdest fucking thing, I swear. She won't laugh at anything unless it's some silly trivial thing like the noise a wet sponge makes when it hits the floor. One solid _splat_ and she'll be peeing her pants and doubling over with tears in her eyes. And why? How is that so funny? She spaces out a lot, but at the same time she's got eyes like a hawk, she’s so attentive. You can't fool her, and don't even try to lie to her because she'll see right through you. Sometimes she'll hum to herself and sing under her breath, and if you catch her doing it she gets mortified and turns bright red. That's another thing. She's like, such a fierce blusher. She's got the pinkest cheeks you will ever see. When she's not pale as fuck, she's pink as fuck. Also, sometimes she wheezes when she laughs too hard and it's really funny. And she has the softest sneeze. It's so fucking weird. She sneezes like a kitten. And her voice. Man, her voice. It's seriously the calmest thing ever. You will never hear anything more soothing, I swear to God. Even when she's angry, it's still calm. I don't know how she does it. Plus, she has, like, this _air_ to her, you know? Like the presence of a queen or some shit. People snap their fucking necks looking at her when she enters a room—and she never notices! She's sharp as a knife but when it comes to certain things, she's completely clueless! She doesn't notice when people are admiring her, as if she doesn't genuinely believe that they would have any reason to. Plus, she's good at like every single thing she does. When I was little, I used to have this theory that she had a lot of past lives that stuck with her through this life and that's why she knows so much and is skilled at everything. She's such an old soul. It's crazy. But then she has the most childish habits at times too. I don't think I'm making any sense right now, but you get what I mean. Also, she doesn't look it, but she could kill a man with her bare hands. It's kinda hard to believe when you see her—I mean, someone that passive should not be able to beat the shit out of someone until they're on the brink of death. BUT SHE CAN DO IT! I've seen it! She has the most delicate-looking hands, but they've broken noses like you wouldn't even imagine. She has the worst jokes—and I mean they're absolutely terrible—but her smile is so pretty, it makes up for every punch line missed. And her eyelashes are like a mile long, Annie. When she cries, tears get caught on them and they clump together like spider legs. She's always pulling her hair behind her ears, but somehow it still always manages to get all over her face. Did I mention she has the cutest little nose? That's probably why her sneezes are so tiny. It's so small. And pointy. And she does this thing where she only shrugs one shoulder and—"

"Eren."

He looks at her, trying to regain his breath. "Huh?"

Annie's nearly gaping at him. Never in her entire four years of knowing him has she ever heard him talk about a girl like that. She's even a little sorry she asked!

"I mean what is she like _physically,_ " and she prays his answer's shorter this time.

"Oh." He laughs at himself. She's not sure whether the redness on his cheeks comes from talking too fast or from embarrassment. "Shit, right, okay. Um, well, she's tall-ish. Kinda. Sorta. Whatever. And she has really pale skin and really dark black hair. Eyes like the night sky, but still kinda gray. I guess it depends on the day or something, but sometimes they're darker than ink and other times they're shiny like silver. She's got the rosiest lips. She's Japanese—well, half Japanese, anyway. And, uh…"

Silence descends.

Sometimes, in the middle of his words, Eren just kinda drifts off, like his mind's just recalled something terrible. And then he stares blankly into space. And then the familiar warmth of his features melts away. And then Annie's left wondering, what's wrong with him? What’s happened to him? What's wrong?

His thoughts drift to when she'd been in his apartment. Mikasa herself. He still has a hard time believing it. It's like that entire day had been conjured from his mind, a reality his desperation fathomed. But she was truly there, and he really did talk to her, and she really did promise to come back. Really. She did.

_What's she like physically, Eren?_

Well, she is the single most beautiful thing he's ever seen. Everything about her is so beautiful it hurts him. Her voice, her hands, her eyes, her lips, her face, her body. Her heart, her soul, her mind. The thoughts that consume her marvelous brain. She's quiet and gentle like the water's surface, but within her there's a depth that twists and churns like a typhoon. It never stops. It’s always spinning. Physically, she is deceiving. Her calm eyes will make you think she’s apathetic, but she feels everything so fully. Unless you’re looking deep enough, you will never know it. She's not one to voice herself and lay all out on the table. She's the type of girl you gotta find. A pain in the ass sometimes, yeah. But she's so gorgeous. Gorgeous in every way. It makes the hunt worth it.

_What's she like physically, Eren?_

Well, now she has a spacious gap between her thighs, which isn’t normal and she’s never had before. Her hair's so long it touches the center of her back—which is fucking crazy. The underwire of her bra protrudes under her shirt when she stretches—as do her ribs. Her existence is so silent sometimes you forget she's even there—and your mind races, searching for her, because she's always just a feeble blow from flying away. And physically, you know you need her. Her air's addicting. She's got this soft, sweet smell that fills you up. She's got these hands that feel like silk on your skin. She's got a gaze that makes you realize that one look can steal a lot more than you thought: your breath, your character. She's like a rose, spiky thorns and everything. Mesmerizing, but you'll hurt yourself if you grip her too tight.

_What's she like physically, Eren?_

Well, her mouth is pert and small and opens slowly when she sighs worriedly before making her way to his bathroom, and her shoulders are stoic and tense and shake when her phone rings and she's in the wrong place to answer her fiancé's call. And those jeans she wears, that she wore to see him, they're expensive and form fitting. He'd be lying if he said he didn't relish in the way they'd fit her, because even though she's so much thinner now, and he's so perturbed by this, his eyes did flitter down more than once, way more than once, and an internal groan formed at the pit of his being because her ass looked so good in them. Always so good!

"Anyway," he clears his throat finally. "You'll know when you see her, 'kay?"

"Do I even want to know what your relationship with her is?"

"No," he answers wearily, closing his eyes. "You don't."

"I won't ask, then."

Good, he thinks. Because the last thing he needs right now is to think about Mikasa Ackerman more than what he already does. But Annie's still standing there, with her hands in her pockets, that neutrally-bored-and-pissed-off look on her face.

"You look like you wanna say something," he says, unscrewing the cap on the water bottle to steal a sip of whatever ice has melted inside. Annie, with her bright blue eyes and flaxen hair and sharp features, meets his gaze and parts her lips to speak.

 _Are you okay, Eren?_ she wants to ask. _Because sometimes you go quiet and I worry but I don't know how to ask you what you're thinking and I feel like something's wrong. Something's always wrong with you. You just know how to cover it all up, I feel. And I don't like it. I don't like it one bit._

Maybe if she were someone else, someone kinder, she'd be able to voice those words. But she shoves them back into her mouth, her throat, and instead tells him, "About this whole girlfriend thing…"

After his second sip, Eren nods. "Yes."

"Why do I have to act like your girlfriend, again?"

"Because this girl's just… Okay, this is not gonna make any sense."

"Just tell me."

He sighs, like he's tired of the topic or just doesn't want to keep talking about it. But he's not the type to leave a conversation unfinished, or words unsaid, so he explains, "So she has a fiancé, right? She loves him. She'd never do anything to hurt him. He's the one she goes home to and the one she wants in her life."

"Okay..."

"The thing is, being with me—due to the nature of our odd relationship which I really just don't want to talk about right now—will—and I know this for sure—make her feel like she's being unjust to him. You know, being with a man he doesn't know or wouldn't necessarily approve of."

"Why wouldn't her fiancé approve of you?"

"Again: odd nature of our relationship."

"I'm guessing she's an ex."

"No. Even worse."

"Ex- _wife?_ "

He shakes his head, pulling a face. "It's complicated."

"I see. Anyway, it's none of my business."

"Thank you."

She'll let the topic go. She will. But she needs to say this one last thing. Just—

"So, as far as I understand, the reason we need to pretend I'm your girlfriend is because it will give her a sense of security somehow. Like, 'oh, he's with someone so he won't try to get back with me'. It makes her feel like she's not doing anything wrong—or anything you're not doing yourself, anyway. It's a no strings attached sort of thing. A psyche trick."

Eren opens his arms like he's about to hug her, but the man's smarter than that. "You see? This is why I love you."

"But why me?" She hopes she doesn't sound as surprised, flattered (?), disturbed and appalled as she actually feels. "Why not ask someone else to play your girlfriend?"

"You were the first person to pop into my head," he replies simply, with a shrug of a shoulder to top it all off. "Plus, I already described you to her. There's not many short blonde girls I know besides, well, you."

"There's Historia," Annie notes, making her way to stand beside him, leaning against the counter just by the side of his leg. Eren keeps talking, making faces like he always does.

"Who's with Ymir. Do you want her to kill me?"

"True."

And they fall into silence again. Eren turns his neck to look down at her, and when Annie lifts her gaze to catch his, she sees that the bruise on his cheek is turning a bit purple now. She feels so bad. He's always been so good to her, and she responds to his one request for a favor by punching him in the face. God, Annie. Why are you like this?

She thinks he'll say something to her. But he doesn't. He just kinda stares at her for a while, looking at her eyes. Like he's trying to make out patterns in their color, find a familiar face, a reflection, a memory, something. She's about to ask him what he's doing, but he snaps his gaze away, staring blankly into space, like her eyes reminded him of something he didn’t want to remember. What is it about their color that would do that? Would it be their shape? The fact that they're so cool and blue and lifeless?

And—holy shit. Is Annie actually feeling self-conscious right now?

"Anyways, I should go," he breathes, and he's hopping to his feet before she can even process what he's just said. He slings the strap of his bag over his shoulder and gives her a tiny smile. "Thanks for your help, and remember: Look into my eyes like they're the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. That's it. That's all you gotta do."

It takes her a moment to realize that he's leaving. "Oh." And maybe she still wants him to stay. Maybe. And maybe he’s the only person she trusts in her entire goddamn life. And maybe he’s like a brother to her and maybe she wants to ask him, wants to understand what it is about her that makes him look at her like that. He’s told her before that she reminds him of someone he used to know. Used to love. But that always came with a significant deal of anguish. And why is it that it hurts him? How is she supposed to feel about reminding him of something that hurts him so bad?

"Will you do the same to mine?" she'd meant it as a tease. But Eren retaliates in a way that's almost intimidating, leaning in so close to her their noses nearly touch. 

She stands her ground, however tiny she is, and doesn't even flinch when he tells her, "Ah, but yours already _are_ the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

"You're a sap."

"You love me."

"So you think."

"Merry Christmas, babe."

"I will literally end you."

It hits her that she's going to pretend to be Eren's girlfriend. It hits her that he's turned to walk away. It hits her that she doesn't even know what being a girlfriend _is_ in the first place, really, even a fake pretend one, let alone why her heart momentarily quivers when gravity pulls her back to the ground when he peels himself away from her and leaves her floating in the air. 

She’d even care to question the nature of her feelings if it wasn’t for the fact that the thought alone makes her want to hurl, that most of her love for him lies under a thick coating of annoyance and inconvenience, and for the fact that she has had crushes before, however faint, that resulted in flings and even relationships and her mind and heart have never gone to such a place with him before, nor would they ever. But they _have_ gone to a place of fierce protectiveness, a bonding and understanding she can’t explain, a kinship that leaves her vulnerable and Annie thinks she understands now. Yeah, she understands. The reason this whole ordeal is difficult for her is because she’s never had to come in contact with anything from Eren’s weird blackhole of a past, even though she’s the only person from their friend group he’s opened up to even remotely about what’s happened to him, where some of the scars come from, why blue eyes and blonde hair make him forget what he’s saying sometimes. And it occurs to her that pretending to be his girlfriend is petty and insignificant and what’s actually making her so nervous, uneasy, is the fear that this sliver of his past life, this Mikasa, this thing he has to work so unnecessarily hard to keep close, will most certainly give way to a truth Annie is not sure she’s okay with facing. Because she doesn’t need to worry about him more, or to want to protect him more, or to want to care more, to be honest. To care at all. 

Seconds before disappearing out the door, he spares her a glance over his shoulder and says, "I'll see you at the party tonight!"

"You won't!" She's almost embarrassed at her tone of voice. But the doors swing shut in his egress and the latch clicks loudly with the resonating impact his presence always leaves behind, and then silence fills the empty space where he once was.

Annie doesn't think he heard her.

**—o—**

Champagne is such a fascinating drink. The bubbles look like tiny spheres dancing in a sea of crystalline pink, twirling in flawless pirouettes as they race their way to the top and die with a muted burst of radiance.

Mikasa didn't know champagne could be pink. But Mikasa doesn't drink, so her fiancé spares her a plethora of teases when she’s in awe of the drink. He kisses her nose, tells her she's "the cutest thing in the world, my rose.”

Her eyes linger on the bottle of Moët Rose sitting idly on one of the snack tables, right behind the platters full of cheeses and crackers and chocolate covered strawberries and sandwiches and macaroons and cookies and _god_ those chocolate covered strawberries look really good—but okay, no, she has to control herself, so no, don't look at that. Look at Jean. Admire your fiancé. Yeah. Good girl. Don't stare at the chocolate. Don't do that. Bad.

Her palms sweat. Mikasa's nervous tonight, and with good reason. God only knows who half these people are. Most of them bear faces like masks, shifting expressions every few seconds and flapping their mouths like puppets conversing in shrill, comical tones. Her thin fingers curl around an extravagant champagne flute, which she carries around solely to wet her lips and give the impression that she's drinking.

Suddenly, her other hand's stolen by her fiancé and he drags her through the theatrical crowd, looking to introduce her to someone new, someone whose name she certainly won't remember and who certainly won't remember hers.

But parties are all about giving the impression that you're interested and interesting. They're about how well you look, not how well you are. And perhaps that's what makes them so damn boring. Two solid minutes into smiling and nodding and linking her arm through Jean's, and she's lost from the conversation, gazing at the fine decorations around her, admiring the Christmas lights that twinkle on the walls and the grand chandelier that hangs from the ceiling. Blah, blah, blah, people keep on spewing. Blah, the stock market. Blah, someone's nose job. Blah, they cheated on their spouse. Blah, and she's not sure what they're talking about anymore.

She brought the book Eren let her borrow in case of boredom—or maybe as a sort of safety blanket really, because it's not like she can actually sit alone in a corner and choose to read it by herself in here. God knows people will stare and whisper more than what they already do, and today she doesn't have the will, or the patience, to bear through any more of that.

Mikasa fixes a lock of hair behind her ear, but it slips over her face again anyway, so she lets the imperfection be; a carefree rebel in all her conscientiousness.

Her hair's pulled back in a sleek ponytail, the ends marceled to a large curl, hanging amid the center of her upper back—which is exposed, due to the low plunge of her dress's backside.

Her dress tonight is unlike anything she's ever worn out in public. The coal-colored fabric clings to her shape, not too tight so that it looks painted but still snug enough to fit like a glove. The neckline is tailored like a choker; the center front part narrow enough to show some collarbone but still wide enough to conceal most of her chest. The sleeves are not only non-existent, but they're practically greedy too. Some chunks of fabric seem to be missing on either side of the dress's bust level, eaten away enough so that some ribs and a slither of side boob break out when she moves too much. The back of the dress dips with a minx-like tease and ends just above her lower back, covering the small dimples she has there but still shaping her ass in its entire form. The hem nearly touches the backs of her knees, but slits open at the front to reveal a little more of her legs. The dress isn't totally risque but neither is it utterly conservative. It hides enough to leave something to the imagination but reveals ample to drive a man mad. It's no wonder why Jean suggested that she wear it. Plus, it goes well with the diamond earrings he got her today as a gift, and the silver, studded bracelet around her wrist (also a gift), and the ankle-strap Gucci stilettos with the clear vamp and chrome heel she's wearing and silently praying don't break her ankles because they’re uncomfortably tall.

The place smells like fancy tuxedos and Chanel No. 5. Men's watches reflect light like Christmas tree ornaments and women's lip-glossed smiles glisten like lacquered chinas set on large dining tables. The boasts of wealthy men inflate the jolly holiday spirit with thunderous laughter, their meek wives tagging along like obedient tails and showing off the gifts proudly bestowed upon them by their husbands. So much life around her and yet Mikasa could not feel more alone.

It's the crowded places that always feel the loneliest.

Outside the tall windows, city lights blur and sing like a chorus of small children. Some flicker, some burn, all of them like stars unclouded by accumulated snow. Snowless Christmases are the worst. Really. But there is something hopeful about the way those little lights shine, how they're distant and diaphanous but shine with purpose, granting her in this lonely night a sense of guardianship somehow. If she wanted to, she could count them all. One, two, three. Green, blue, golden. But there are thousands of them, it seems. And soon they blur into little specks and lose their magic, dispersing, perishing under her gaze.

Jean notices her spacing out. A hard kiss on the cheek brings her back to him.

"You okay?" he asks her, his coppery eyes melting into hers. She nods, opening her mouth to say something. But what would she say? Nothing important. So she clamps it shut and offers him a quaint smile, closes her eyes to his touch when he smooths that one rebellious lock of hair away from her face, successfully securing it behind her ear this time.

For a second, she thinks he'll hold her face and tell her something. Opening her eyes to meet his gaze, she thinks she sees the colors reflected in him—green, blue, gold. But then she realizes that she's searching for things that aren't there, that he can't give her. Jean pulls his hand away from her and downs a swig of his own champagne, resuming the conversion with the people around them as she stares at the way his mouth moves and forms words she isn't hearing, pulling chuckles out of men she feels are no longer there. After a few seconds, he reaches for her hand, interlocks their fingers and kisses the engagement ring before shooting her a questioning look, which she meets with a reassuring curve of the lips, and he follows with another sip of his alcoholic beverage. Moments later, her eyes are on those strange little lights again, and they look so close yet so out of reach, optical illusions that are merely painted on a screen.

Green.

Blue.

Gold.

They shimmer.

Pine.

Lemon.

Wood.

She inhales.

 _Welcome home, Mikasa._ Welcome home.

Earthy, citrusy, organic. Channel No. 5 and lacquered grins. Hot chocolate with whipped cream and Creed Royal cologne mixed with Old Spice. Sepia book pages and roasting fires fused with pink champagne and the expensive smell of brand new stilettos. Home and home. Familiar and familiar. Dizzying and overwhelming and before she knows it, Mikasa's squeezing Jean's hand to gain his attention.

"I'm gonna go for a walk," she tells him, leaning in so she can speak under her breath. Jean furrows his brows, blinking at her.

"A walk? But baby, it's cold outside."

She smiles at the uncanny resemblance to the 1950's Frank Loesser song. "I'll be fine," she assures him, and after scrutinizing her for a moment, her fiancé rolls his tongue in his cheek and nods.

"Alright. Be safe. Call me if anything."

"I will."

"And take my coat." He taps the bottom of her chin with a curled finger. "It's warmer than yours."

Quickly, Mikasa nods. "Okay." And turns to leave him.

As she goes, questions begin to arise. Excitement starts to flourish. Her new found autonomy inquires: Where will she go? What will she do? What will she make of this snowless Christmas?

But her fiancé's clutching her hand before she can take one full step away from him. She thinks he'll stop her. She thinks he'll tell her to stay with him instead.

But no.

"Hey," he whispers, bringing a hand up to actually hold her face this time, to actually reflect the glow of all those little lights when he coruscates, "I love you."

Relaxing into his touch, Mikasa closes her eyes one final time.

_I will be a good fiancée._

_I will be a good wife._

_I will be a good mother._

_I will be happy._

"I love you too, Jean."

And she means it. She means it with all her heart.

**—o—**

Eren hates taking out the trash. And to make matters worse, the bag he carries out to the front of his building is not only filled with random rancid shit, but also with some random stranger's puke. Why he let the girls coax him into carrying it out is beyond him—but part of him understands that it's because he's the only sober one here tonight, the only one not vomiting or blubbering or flirting with people whose faces he'll regret waking up next to tomorrow. It's nearly midnight, and there's not an ounce of alcohol in him yet. Yet.

Fleetingly, he processes that there's no snow outside tonight. That sucks. Not because he likes snow but because Christmases that are destitute of it tend to recall events in his life that aren't very pleasant. That, tonight, kind of piss him off.

Even more fleetingly, he thinks of the girl. You know which one. The one with the rosy lips and dark black hair and tiny nose and shapely ass. Chuckling to himself, he throws the trash bag atop a pile of more trash bags for the garbage people to pick up in the morning.

His springy mind, however, stalls when he thinks of what day it is today. Today marks exactly six years since the night Mikasa left him. Not that he's counting. But he is.

He wipes his hands on his jeans, as if that alone is enough to clean off the grimy feeling of carrying someone else's garbage. He can hear music coming out from Hitch's apartment, accompanied by the laughter and chatter of all his friends. Someone's screaming at the top of their lungs about chugging an entire vodka bottle in one go. It's probably Ymir. He can't tell. Everyone's talking over one another and shouting dares at whoever's offering to down an entire Grey Goose. He looks up at the sky, sighing, a plume of chilled smoke blowing out of his mouth. Maybe he should go back up and tell them to quiet down before the cops come with a noise complaint. Or maybe not. Maybe he'll just grab a smoke. It's cold out and he didn't bring his coat but he can bear through it. Right? Yeah, he can. What the hell. Why not? Nobody's missing him. The lighter's in his back pocket and the cigs are—

Wait.

A shape takes form in the corner of his vision.

Eren whips his head to look.

He's imagining it. He's sure of it. It can't be. It's too soon.

But he knows that figure. He knows it too damn well.

He knows that hair color and that body and that click of heels on cement. And so many people in the world have light skin, and dark eyes, and black hair, and long legs, but he's so certain of what he's seeing—maybe not with his eyes, but who can explain the vibrant flutter in his being? The swarm of butterflies that tug his gut? The sudden light that nearly blinds him and the gasp that pries his lips apart? It's a sight he recognizes with his soul. 

The name resurrects on his tongue like a prayer, a divine declaration that quenches the parched, cracked earth of his heart. Uttering it feels like the sun on his skin after years of endless winter. And that's how he knows for sure what he's looking at. Because who else? Who else ever makes him feel this way? There's only one name, one beacon, one lighthouse that points him straight home:

"Mikasa?"

**—o—**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please bestow your eyes upon this gorgeous work tumblr user lolakasa made for this chapter back in 2015 when i first posted it. mikasa is caught so tremendously well in this. i'm forever thankful :')


	8. Every Petal on My Flower Crown Was a Smile on My Lips

Kids at school weren't very nice at all.

During the first week of fourth grade, Mikasa had officially been dubbed “Chicken Curry” by her classmates. The reason? It was beyond her. Certainly, there was nothing about her that resembled the dish. But a lot of things were beyond Mikasa's comprehension, unfortunately.

Lots of names were hissed at her (new girl, chink, Chinkerbell, rice ball, slant eyes, gook, Jap, ching-chang , just to name a few) and she knew what none of them meant. The oddest name thus far—even weirder than Chicken Curry—was gink, a cruel mixture between “gook” and “chink” that made her cringe whenever any of the kids pronounced it. She didn't need to understand what any of the words meant. The leers on the young faces that mocked her were enough to show that none held good meanings at all.

Teasing wasn't the only thing the kids did to her, though.

Through the span of a few short days, their name-calling increased to acts of blatant cruelty. A group of girls, led by a fourth grader named Sarah, were particularly keen on making Mikasa's life a living hell. They began by denying her access to the bathrooms, standing in a straight line like a wall to block her way.

“Excuse me,” Mikasa had said when she first encountered them. “I would like to get through.”

The girls, especially Sarah, all snorted loudly and laughed in her face. Mikasa's heart shot up to her throat, for she'd lived in the woods long enough to understand when things meant danger. When an animal is cornered, their fear fuels a primal need to fight or flight. Mikasa though, had a gentler soul. Patiently, she waited, swallowing her apprehension with one big gulp. She stared at the girls right in the eyes, to show that they didn't own her.

“She talks funny,” one of them said. Besides that, they chose to ignore her, and that's how it went. They just stood there, refusing her access to the restrooms and pretending she wasn't there until she gave up and went away. At first, Mikasa used to stand and wait patiently for them to budge. They never did. Once, she even tried to force her way through them. But they sneered and lunged forth threateningly, looming over her small frame like dark shadows so that the unvoiced message was very clear: _You are not getting through._

_You are not welcome here._

They liked to make her life impossible simply for the pleasure of it all. And thus, blocking her way to the bathroom was how their quest began. They did it so that she was forced to humiliate herself and use the boys' restroom or find the other bathrooms on the school's opposite wing, but the latter would result in her being late to class, which was punishable, so Mikasa simply chose to hold it in until school hours were done. She was oddly resilient like that, the girl. Even at such a young age, she wore a stoic expression when suffering through pain, not once giving away her true feelings.

Her school locker was next.

They would manage to lock it from the inside somehow, so that her books were all kept inside and Mikasa would, once again, face the danger of being late to her classes. Getting teachers and janitors to help her unlock the thing usually ensued a mild commotion and a lot of explaining on her part, a lot of questioning from adults, a lot of doubt in the principal's eyes. And so she took the memo and compromised. She began to carry all of her books to her classes. Every single one. They were very heavy, but Mikasa was strong.

Then it was her lunch.

It began to disappear mysteriously. With nothing to eat during the day, Mikasa endured torturous hours of hunger. She began to eat large breakfasts at home, avoiding Mama's gaze when she happily handed her a freshly prepped lunchbox, knowing deep inside that the contents were to merely vanish during the day into another child's stomach.

She'd scarf down copious amounts of toast and pancakes and cereal and whatever Mama would fix that morning. She even questioned her once, and Mikasa explained that it was probably because of ballet, because she was growing, because her appetite was increasing that she needed to eat so much. She never mentioned her true trifles. Mama wouldn't be pleased at all. So she lied. Mikasa lied to her and Papa. And sadly, these large breakfasts didn't hold out for very long.

During the last few periods of school, Mikasa had a tiger growing in her belly. It roared and grumbled. The longer she went without eating, the louder it roared. The louder it roared, the more the children laughed at her. The more they laughed, the better Mikasa became at ignoring them.

Recess? A nightmare.

Because Armin was still feeling ill, he was absent from school for nearly three whole weeks. During that time, Mikasa didn't have anyone to sit with at lunch or to play with during recess, having made no friends besides him. And it was during recess that kids were the cruelest. After all, they had all that free time.

Her path to the bathroom was blocked regularly, but one time during recess, she managed to sneak in when nobody was around, only to find **_GOOK_ **scribbled on the bathroom mirrors with pink lipstick. It had to be done by Sarah. No other kids ever carried makeup around but her.

And you know what Mikasa did? She wiped the pink gunk away. Dampening some toilet paper, she dragged it over the letters until all that was left was a pink, blurry mess. Through the smudged paint and wet clumps of paper, she'd caught her reflection in the mirror and gawked.

 _Gook,_ her own face seemed to whisper back to her. _Gook._

Her small eyes closed, chest expanding. No, she told herself. She was so much more. She was more than their words. Mama always told her she was important. Papa always said it too. And they were right. Mikasa was worth much more than what all those mean kids were saying.

But how does a nine-year-old genuinely believe that?

With a full bladder and no desire to relieve it anymore, Mikasa left.

She was alienated on a daily basis. She heard kids whispering about her everywhere she went, huddled close together and howling like evil little hyenas. Even the walls began to breathe, _You are different. You're not their race. Nobody in this school likes you because of that._

How could such small children harbor so much hate? It was baffling.

Unfortunately, Sarah's little crowd reigned over everything, even the small park behind the school so that when Mikasa tried to claim a swing for herself, or use the slides or monkey bars, she was promptly pushed away and shooed off like a pesky little flea. That's all she was to them, a flea. Ugly. Tiny. Squashable. And they all insisted on treating her as such.

The teachers never noticed their abuse, or perhaps they merely chose to ignore it. Mikasa regularly wondered: do they not see what all of them do to her? Do they not care that she's pushed off by the others for no reason at all? Is there no one here to help her?

And what about God? Why did Kami allow all of this to happen? Wasn't school supposed to be, as Papa had once put it, “fun”?

For the first few days of fourth grade, Mikasa sat on a bench all by herself and counted down the hours, the minutes, the seconds until school was over and it was time to go back home. Whenever she found herself in this position, she daydreamed, she sung lullabies under her breath, she consoled herself with nature's music, listened to the trees hiss all around her and got lost in their wise, ancient songs. She thought of home, her _real_ home, and ached for it. What she wouldn't have done to be back in the woods again…

Luckily, though, her school allowed children to be in the library during recess, so she began to skip the period altogether, spending her time there with nothing but her own company and her books. That was enough. That was more than enough. Mikasa didn't really mind loneliness. It had been her constant companion her entire life.

What she couldn't deal with was isolation, though. When children threw objects at her or tried to trip her in the halls or called her Chicken Curry in front of a chortling crowd, she wasn't really sure what to do with herself. She didn't know how to act around people to begin with, let alone mean people. 

Mikasa told no one of the bullying she faced every single day. She endured it all in silence, developing coping mechanisms to help her through the torture: Whenever she really needed to go to the bathroom and the other girls wouldn't let her, she'd play a game of perseverance, like that game where one sees how long they can last holding their breath. How long could she last holding in her necessities before she felt that she would pop? One day, it was two hours. Another, it was four. Once, she came so close to peeing herself that she had to run to the nurse's office and lie about having to puke, so that she was allowed to use their private restroom and relieve herself there.

When her arms became sore from carrying all her books, she pretended that she was carrying Papa's freshly cut firewood instead. If she persevered long enough, soon she would make it to their cabin home and help Mama prepare the fire for her to cook and make herself warm. Home was replaced by her classes, and firewood was actually the bulk of many books, but Mikasa was always very good at pretending. And so she did.

Whenever the kids called her names, she would close her eyes and count to ten (sometimes twenty) until their contempt didn't affect her anymore. Eventually, the hurt would pass, the names would melt away, and she could focus on more important things instead. Like her books, and daydreaming. Mikasa loved daydreaming.

The library became her sanctuary in a way. It was no wonder why Armin loved books so much. They granted escape. Lost in the limitless spaces of their pages, Mikasa Ackerman was safe. Nobody could hurt her there. Nobody could bother her.

“Don't you wanna play with the kids outside?” the librarian had asked her one day when she was drawing.

“Nope,” Mikasa replied nonchalantly, dragging a crayon meticulously across the page. She hadn't mentioned that she didn't feel like having dirt thrown at her that day, or that she'd had no lunch to eat, or that earlier that morning Sarah had mouthed “bitch” to her while passing her down the hall (the b-word was a big no no in her household. Mama always pinched Papa's arm whenever he said it out loud), and Mikasa didn't even know what that word meant! But she did know that it was bad, and that Sarah hadn't been whispering it to her with good intentions—especially since the kids beside her all started to snigger.

The authorities rewarded her general obedience in school by allowing her to spend her days in the library all by herself, holding in her pee, starving. All of this in utter silence, all of this beyond their notice, yet right under their noses. 

In the library, there was a large window overlooking the playground outside. This was her window to the outside world, her link to those that weren't alienated or abandoned. Her eyes would survey the distant figures whenever she grew bored of her books, and many times, they caught glimpses of the boy who'd been kind to her, his name, Eren Jaeger, reverberating in her heart. And in her soul she'd feel the startling need to reach out to him, bring herself to him in some way. But he was always busy, that boy. If he wasn't screaming at the tops of his lungs like a total crazy while playing tag or something of the like, he was running around kicking a soccer ball, or getting lost somewhere with his friends. He was constantly surrounded by people. 

He never spoke to her after the first day of school. Eren never even glanced her way after that. His mind was too busy, and Mikasa was too invisible—even to his bright, sharp eyes.

The thought depressed her, but it was true. In that school, she was nothing. He probably just did what he did that day on a whim, because he felt like it, had an itch. Or maybe he had done it because Armin told him to. Or because he wanted to feel better about himself. Or he'd been dared. All of these were possible. For all she knew, he may as well have been mocking her too.

But then, one day, he surprised her.

Out of nowhere, Eren suddenly appeared in the library, claiming to have to return the books his absent friend Armin had borrowed. The familiar name made her head shoot up from her coloring book. The familiar face she saw made her heart forget a beat.

Eren didn't even acknowledge her, but this didn't stop her from questioning: _Armin? His books? Return them?_ But why would he send Eren to do it and not her? Armin knew she spent her days at the library. She'd told him this while dropping off his homework one day after school. So why did he send Eren?

As a nine-year-old, Mikasa had a lot of thoughts. They clouded her judgment sometimes.

This was one of those times.

To avoid Eren, she arose from her seat and ambled along the library in search for a new book to read. It was all just for show, really. To get away from him, to run from the feeling of fondness she felt blooming for him in her heart. Feelings she didn’t like, didn’t feel like accepting.

She walked in circles, hiding behind the large bookshelves until she was sure that the boy was gone. Eren had the sort of presence you felt in the air around you, so she didn't even need to check to see if he had left. It felt easier to breathe all of a sudden, thus indicating his egress. Mikasa scurried back to her seat, returning to her coloring book and her crayons.

That was when she saw it.

A paper bag sat curiously by her books. It felt almost like an illusion, conjured from thin air. Tentatively, she approached it, and when she brought herself to peer inside it, tears welled up in her eyes.

Mikasa cried.

There was food inside.

The paper bag rustled as she snuck in a hand to rummage through its contents. There was a sandwich in a small zip-lock bag, an apple, a pouch of Capri Sun juice, and a note. Slowly, the small girl plucked out the crumpled letter and smoothed it out. Through the tears and the bewilderment, she read it:

**_for Mikasa_ **

**_i'm sorry that peapol in our school suck. you can have my lunch. i hope your not alergic to peanut butter becose if you are then that sucks. i'm sorry. don't die please. i don't want to be responseble for your death_ **

**_PS. i asked my dad for lunch money. it's okay_ **

**_PPS. i hope your not alergic to grape jelly either_ **

**_PPPS. or bread_ **

Beads of salt water breached the slit of her eyes and rolled densely down her cheeks, leaving trails behind that dampened her skin a shade darker. Whether she wept from happiness or sadness, Mikasa did not know. She had seen the handwriting only once before, scrawled wildly on a chalkboard in front of a rowdy crowd of children, drawn beautifully and disastrously beside the shy, neat letters of her own name.

It was Eren's.

**—o—**

That afternoon, there was no tiger in her belly.

Mikasa hadn't eaten the contents of the bag immediately, instead just stood there crying and hiccuping for a moment before wiping her tears away. Sniffling, she sat back down, and stared at the bag, contemplating. Ten whole minutes passed before she brought herself to bite into the apple. It was crisp and juicy. Delicious. She ate all of it except the core.

And then she bit into the sandwich. She could tell that Eren made it himself, because something about the way the peanut butter and jelly were proportioned seemed clumsy and uneven. There was too much peanut butter and not enough jelly. An adult would have known to distribute both spreads evenly. Still, it was yummy. Perhaps it was all due to the hunger, but that uneven, clumsy sandwich was the best thing she'd eaten in days.

Once the juice pouch was sucked dry, she disposed of the bag, but kept Eren's little letter. She must've stared at the thing for the remainder of recess, until the bell rang and it was time to go back to class.

_Apples or Pears?_

That was the question she was met with in art class.

Mikasa had been sitting in her seat, working on her assigned drawing, when she felt a gentle nudge on her elbow and saw a folded note slipping into her peripheral through a gap between her torso and her arm.

Confused, she took the note and turned around to face the person who had given it to her. She didn't know the kid. Suspiciously, she looked around him. Was this some sort of joke? Had somebody put him up to this? The rest of the children were working together in groups, so she was the only one sitting by herself, and it was just the kid and her when his eyes spoke for him and he nudged his head to the side to direct her gaze in that direction.

For an instant, Eren's eyes met hers.

But then he promptly pulled his gaze away. He was working in a very large group, talking loudly with his friends and laughing so that she was left frowning for a moment, wondering if she'd imagined the look they both had shared.

“It's from him,” the kid whispered to her, leaning in so close she could smell his breath. Mikasa furrowed her brows in an odd mixture of elation and confusion.

Eren sent her that note?

Eren sent somebody to give her that note for him?

Really?

It was just… weird. Nobody had spoken to her since she'd first come to the school, save for those who taunted her and now this odd child. For a moment, she stared at his face, at how close he was to her, and debated whether his sudden appearance was just another one of the children's cruel tricks.

There was no way that note could be from Eren. But then again… he had given her his lunch that day. He had been kind. And he hadn't done it directly, no. He'd done it when she wasn't looking.

Eren's back was to her. He was laughing at something one of the kids in his group said.

“Eren sent me this?” she asked the mysterious child. He nodded and prompted for her to open the note.

Her eyes shot to Mrs. Ral. She was busy doing paperwork, her attention fixed on her grown-up, teacher stuff. A prick of worry bloomed in Mikasa's heart. If she were to open the note and find something atrocious, the teacher would not be able to see the expression on her face. What if it was so bad that it shocked her, or made her cry? Isn't that what all of the kids wanted? Her tears? Her demise? For them to conquer her?

Maybe they all knew how she felt for Eren.

But… how _did_ she feel for Eren?

Mikasa opened the darn note, finally, deciding to find out once and for all what was inside it.

**_apples or pears?_ **

What.

She blinked and turned to frown at the child behind her. “What's this?” she whispered. “I don't understand.”

“He wants to know,” the kid whispered back, “whether you like apples or pears more.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Beats me. But I'm not supposed to return without an answer. So answer him.”

Mikasa squinted her eyes, piecing it all together. Eren was asking her about the lunch. So it really was a note from him! He really did send it to her! This was her chance to write him back and thank him and tell him everything; like how yummy the sandwich was and how apples aren't really her thing but the one he gave her today was totally delicious!

Turning back around, she ripped a blank sheet of paper off her notebook and wrote. The kid, whose name she did not know, waited quietly behind her. Once she finished scribbling, she folded the paper a couple of times and handed it to him. “Make sure he gets this.”

The boy gave her a nod. “Okay.”

And then, just like that, he stood up and left her.

Mikasa returned to her drawing, never once looking up for fear that the eyes she'd meet would not be kind. After all, nobody else in the class was very nice to her. So she drew, her dark eyes glued to her work before her, unaware of the green-with-blue ones that beamed as soon as they read the note she had sent.

She didn't see the way Eren turned to stare at her over his shoulder, making his friends look too. How he shook his head and pocketed her note, the faintest of smiles spread over his features. He had that sort of smile that you felt too, that reached out of him and touched you. So her back prickled under his gaze, her skin tingled where his eyes scrutinized her.

 _Apples or Pears?_ he had asked her. She heard him laugh—that fruity laugh of his—at her reply:

_Chocolate, please._

**—o—**

The floodgates had opened.

Sighing in bliss, Mikasa closed her eyes and relieved herself in the grubby McDonald's bathroom her mother and her frequented every day before ballet lessons began. It was near the dance studio, about a single block away, and Mama had made a habit of preparing Mikasa for her lessons in the bathroom before buying her a snack.

Her tiny dribble was the only noise in the bathroom as her mother waited quietly with her arms crossed over her chest, a hairbrush in one hand, hair spray in the other, patience and curiosity both mingling in her gaze. She fixed her daughter in a rather ambiguous expression, tapping her fingers on her forearm in deep thought.

Mikasa peed for a solid minute.

Mama furrowed her brows.

“Do you not use the bathrooms in school?” she queried, her accent dripping thickly through some of her words. Mikasa occupied herself with rolling toilet paper around her small hand, deliberately avoiding the look Mama was giving her.

“They're dirty,” she murmured the best excuse she could think of—which wasn't all that great. Mama's frown grew deeper, but Mikasa averted her eyes and focused on finishing up instead. The toilet flushed, as did the rest of the conversation, as did her confidence under Mama's hefty gaze.

The tiles on the walls were yellow and stained with grime, and she stared at the perturbing, unhygienic sight whilst Mama pulled her hair back into a neat little bun. Once she was in her tights, leotard, and slippers, and her face had been splashed (read: attacked) with water to, as Mama claimed, “freshen up”, they both shared an order of chicken nuggets with sweet n' sour sauce and ate in relative peace. When Mama had asked how her day in school went, Mikasa had taken a moment to really weigh the question.

“It went well.”

“Did it really?”

“Mhm,” and then she shoved the remainder of a half-eaten nugget into her mouth to avoid further conversation.

Mama stared at her with her gentle gaze; her eyelashes the same exaggerated length as Mikasa's, but only shooting straight down instead upwards so that the only time anyone really got to see their impressive length was when she blinked. Mama was full of these hidden beauties, relics that could only be found with close attention and time. For example: at a distance, any person with functioning eyes could see that Mikasa's mother was tremendously beautiful. But it was up close, when the sheen of her hair shone brightest and the pallor of her cheeks glowed and her laugh lines indented with the faintest of smiles, that one could truly see that the woman was stunning. And although small in stature and quiet in air, Mama possessed the fierce strength of a mountain. It was no wonder why Papa always called her the most beautiful woman in the world. Mikasa had been living under her wing for nine years, and still her radiance bewildered her. Her own mother!

 _Gook,_ a voice crooned from somewhere in her mind. _Your mother's a Gook._

“Are you sure, honey?” Mama said suddenly, pulling her from her thoughts. Mikasa shoved another nugget into her mouth, shifting in her seat. Her feet swung back and forth in the air, legs too short to reach the ground below them.

“Yes, Mama. Today was good.”

She was never a very good liar.

Warily, Mikasa swallowed her food, and tried not to think of the fact that she'd just been untruthful to Mama, for she always felt the inevitable fear that she could read her thoughts. (Adults could already see the future, chances were they could read minds too.)

Then, she thought of how the kids at school treated her. She thought of how Sarah and her crew blocked her path to the bathroom and laughed in her face. She thought of how she'd gone to her assigned cubby to retrieve her lunchbox, already knowing that the contents were gone. She thought of her locker, which stood vacant somewhere in her school, locked from the inside. She thought of how her arms felt sore, how she'd had to find a secret spot in the library to hide all her books to be able to retrieve them first thing tomorrow morning.

Then she thought of Eren.

And she thought of his voice, how his laughter punctured holes in the air when she explained to him that one can't be deliberately allergic to grape jelly, or bread, unless you have a gluten intolerance, and then those holes would fill with the smile that would claim his face, and spread to hers, and indent that tiny, impossible dimple on the corner of his mouth. The more she thought about it, the more he reminded her of a prince. He just had that sort of regal presence that made everything he is echo on the hearts he'd touched with little to no effort. She thought of what Armin would say if he knew she was thinking of Eren this way. He'd probably laugh.

Mikasa cleared her throat.

She was chewing on her fifth or sixth nugget when she peeked up at Mama, who was watching her with tenderness in her eyes. “What?” she asked, still chewing.

“Nothing,” her mother smiled warmly. “I love you.”

“I know.”

“Are you nervous for ballet?”

“A little.”

“You'll do great. I know it.”

 _Mama, what's a gook?_ she nearly asked her, but something in her heart told her not to. Keep it a secret, it advised. Don't ask her anything of the sort, for she certainly would not like it.

Mikasa cleared her throat again.

She itched with the need to recount the events of her day. She wanted badly to tell her mother of how she'd been saved, how a boy had made her smile when she'd been feeling lonely. How, incredibly, she's returned to her seat in the library to find _lunch,_ and a written note from him, which she still has in her possession. But her heart, again, told her to keep that a secret, for then she would have to explain how her lunch had been stolen in the first place, meet the silent fury that would burn in her black eyes. No, Mikasa decided. Better not to say anything at all.

She ate the rest of her meal in silence, until her belly was so bloated she felt that she could barf. Mama chided her gently for over-eating, and Mikasa didn't mention that the poor peanut butter and jelly sandwich she'd had for lunch had spiked her appetite more than what she'd anticipated.

Once in the car, however, the words accidentally slipped out.

“Mama, what's a gook?”

It was as if somebody had slapped her across the face. Her mother raised her head and peered at her through the rear view mirror. With dire seriousness, she spoke.

“Where did you hear that word?” There were creases around her lips from how tightly she was pursing them.

“Someone said it in school.”

“Was it to you?”

“No.”

“Mikasa,” it was like a boulder crashing onto cement. Her name brought her eyes up to look at her. Mama, as predicted, wasn't pleased by the question at all.

 _Poopie_ , Mikasa thought, biting her tongue. _I knew I shouldn't have said it._

“Who called you that, Mikasa?”

“Nobody, Mama.”

“Mikasa…”

“I was saved.” Just as suddenly as the words had shot out of her mouth, her mother balked, caught off guard by her answer.

“What did you say?”

“A prince. He saved me.”

“A prince?” Mama frowned. She seemed confused, offended even. Like Mikasa had just talked back to her to disrespect her—something that she never did.

“Mhm,” she breathed, looking out the window. She could feel her mother's gaze on her, feel her confusion. But Mama was a very patient person. She swallowed, staring out at nothing for a moment as if collecting her thoughts. Then she cleared her throat, looked at her daughter through the rear view mirror again.

“How?”

“It's a secret.”

“Mikasa—”

“It's a secret.”

Her poor mother was so dumbfounded that her face was even comical. She blinked her eyes rapidly as if there was something in them and shook her head. Her mouth opened to say more, but a single glance at the time deviated all objections and replaced them with a raised finger pointed at the child and a menacing, “This conversation isn't over.”

And they drove away. Mikasa daydreamed.

**—o—**

Eren brought her chocolate every day. He didn't allow for a single recess to go by where Mikasa didn't have a homemade lunch to eat. She didn't expect him to keep the daily ritual, since she discovered that he was—believe it or not—quite shy.

Yes. Eren Jaeger, when it came to certain things, was the shy type.

He gave the lunches to the librarian, so that she would pass them on to Mikasa later in the day. “It's from Eren,” she'd tell her, a smile dusting her lips. “Thank you,” Mikasa would reply, turning her head to find the boy through the library's window, immediately recognizing the distant specter of his body, the messy, disheveled head of brown hair and the legs that flickered to and fro, flashing at lightning speed beneath him and kicking a soccer ball about. She'd seen him trip over them once and fall flat on his face. Mikasa had laughed to herself, quietly. She realized that when it came to Eren, she was always laughing or smiling.

Eren Jaeger.

There was something fierce about his name, something strong, and she knew that it was more than his acts of kindness that made it linger in her spirit. It was his eyes, his smile, the dimple that she'd seen only a handful of times. It was… him. All of him. Eren as a whole. That _’_ s what fascinated her.

Each day, he brought her a different kind of chocolate. Some days it was milk chocolate, others it was dark chocolate, mostly it was just whatever he could get his hands on: Mars chocolate bars, Snickers, Hershey's Kisses, yada-yada. Mikasa never once complained, except for when he stopped writing her notes and slipping them into her lunches. The meals felt barren without his voice captured in his handwriting. She wondered why he changed, why he no longer sent her little letters with her meals. Not that it bothered her for long, though—there was chocolate that needed to be eaten.

Gradually, the sandwiches' quality improved. Instead of peanut butter and jelly, they became BLT's, turkey sandwiches, tuna—he even left her a meatball sandwich once. She ate them all, suspicious, contriving a plan to thank him for the sudden upgrade, but she never found the courage to deliver her own dare. For some odd reason, Eren felt as distant and impossible to reach as if he were a king, and her a lowly commoner. His lunches, the different types of sandwiches and chocolates, were the only interactions they had with one another for what felt like a long time: Eren benevolently—absently—providing her with food, and Mikasa spiritually—and also absently—thanking him for it.

It was one cloudy afternoon, when she couldn't find him playing outside that no lunch had been delivered to her. Mikasa would be lying if she said that she hadn't felt disappointed—but not because she had to go through the day without food, but because she'd discovered that Eren had been absent. The entire school felt empty without him there, without his screams and his laughter and his dirty soccer ball shooting through the air. The walls grew taller and the sunlight dimmed and the circus of life around her paled in her indifference. What was the joy of school without Eren in it? 

The next day, though, she received a paper bag containing her lunch. There was extra chocolate inside, and a written apology.

“It's from you-know-who,” the librarian smiled, her old eyes crinkling with a silent, motherly joy that reminded Mikasa very much of Mama. Her young eyes crinkled also, and she hastened to read the note as soon as she noticed the slip of paper folded inside.

**_sorry about yesterday, i had to take care of my mom_ **

_It's okay,_ Mikasa whispered in her heart. _Please don't be sorry, Eren._ She wished that she was braver. Brave enough to corner him in school, to verbally thank him for being this kind to her. But Eren was constantly surrounded by those that bullied her, and their presence always cemented her feet to the ground. How could a commoner approach a king when he had an army? An angry army? A battalion that despised her for no reason at all? Vermin, chicken curry. Who was she to approach him in any way? To them, she was no one. And she couldn't help but feel this sort of humiliation stain a blotch in her own self-esteem.

That same day in art class, however, when she was busy working on a painting by herself, she received another note. It had appeared out of nowhere, and her stomach tightened when she realized who the note was from.

**_how are you?_ **

Eren.

She held her breath for a moment and looked around. Eren's back was to her, as usual, but he sat only a seat away, surrounded by his usual crowd save for Sarah. He was so close! Within arm's reach! How come she hadn't noticed him approaching? How come she hadn't sensed him in the air? All heads were bowed and submerged in their work, including Mrs. Ral's, so Mikasa was quick to scribble an answer and fold her note before handing it over to him.

Her heart felt like it might explode, it was beating so fiercely. She reached out, very slowly, and tapped Eren on the back of his shoulder. Electricity sparked where the tip of her finger met the fabric of his shirt and she felt the skin, the muscle, the bone that laid beneath.

Eren turned to look at her. His eyes were calm and green and blue and gold and so, so bright.

Mikasa swallowed. Hard.

Then handed him the piece of paper.

Eren took it without uttering a word, and then turned right back around to read it. Some small heads lifted to peer at him with curiosity. He ignored them. Mikasa did too.

_I'm good. How are you?_

From the corner of her eye, she could see him scribbling down his answer. His arm moved quickly, scrawling his words down so feverishly she could hear the scratch of his pencil rasping the paper with the ferocity of his words. When he was done, he folded his note, shot a quick glance at Mrs. Ral to make sure she wasn't looking, and then slipped his arm behind him and held the note out for Mikasa to take.

She was quick to retrieve it, quick to unfold it, even quicker to skim her eyes through his handwriting.

**_fine. how was the chocolate? i told mom to give you extra today_ **

Scribble. Fold. Check on Mrs. Ral. Deliver.

_It was good. Thank you._

Scribble. Fold. Check on Mrs. Ral. Deliver.

**_anything else you mite want?_ **

Scribble. Fold. Check on Mrs. Ral. Deliver.

_You mean for lunch?_

That is how their note passing went, until Mikasa's mild uneasiness at the odd nature of their practice subsided and she felt excitement swelling in her chest. She was talking to Eren! Through notes, yeah. But it was better than nothing.

**_yea silly_ **

Scribble. Fold. Check on Mrs. Ral. Deliver.

_No thanks. I'm happy with my lunches._

She waited for his answers with the shadow of a smile on her lips.

**_i'm glad your happy_ **

(Eren did too.)

_Thank you._

**_if you ever want anything just tell me. I know that Ar being abcent means that you spend lots of time alone_ **

_He's sick. It's okay._

**_why are peapol always sick? i hate it_ **

_I don't know. I hate it too._

**_i'm sorry_ **

_For what?_

**_for Armin being sick and leaving you all alone_ **

_Don't be sorry. I like being alone._

**_relly?_ **

_Yeah._

**_don't you feel sad when your alone?_ **

_No._

**_i do_ **

_Why?_

**_i don't kno. being alone usualy makes me feel sad_ **

_Not to me._

**_cool_ **

_Thank you for the big sandwiches. They keep me full all day._

**_i'm glad you like them. mom makes them. all i know how to do is cereal_ **

_That's fine. You told your mom to make me sandwiches?_

**_actualy, making you lunch was her idea. she's been doing them from the start_ **

_Really?_

**_yup_ **

_I thought you were the one making them. How?_

**_how what?_ **

_How did she know my lunch was being stolen?_

**_i told her_ **

_Why?_

**_becose i felt like it_ **

_Okay._

**_sorry it just slipt out of me. i tell her everything_ **

_It's okay. I think it's very kind of her._

**_i'll tell her you said that. she'll be glad_ **

_Actually Eren there's something more I would like from you._

**_what is it?_ **

_Tell your mother I say thanks._

**_will do_ **

_Should I make her a flower crown?_

**_she would love that_ **

_Okay. I'll bring it to school someday._

**_i'll make sure she gets it!_ **

_Eren._

**_Mikasa_ **

_One more thing, okay?_

**_ok_ **

She stared at her own note for a very long time before standing up to discard it in the trash can. With that, their interaction ended that day.

 _Please be happy_ , read the note Eren never received.

**—o—**

Ballet, mixed with school and homework, was utterly exhausting.

Papa was away on a business trip, so it was just her and Mama for a few days. Her mother had let go of the conversation they'd had a few days prior, and Mikasa had hoped that perhaps she'd forgotten all about it. But that was not the case, unfortunately. Her mother's memory was more acute than that.

It was one day, when they were on their way home after ballet lessons, that Mama brought it up again. And even though Mikasa's head bobbed and her eyes drifted off and the sun no longer brightened up the sky, her mother absolutely grilled her, begging for the specific names of the people who called her names. Mikasa didn't remember whether she'd murmured the answers truthfully or not. Her feet ached and her back and legs were sore from rigorous hours of dance practice. (They'd focused on doing splits that day. Who knew splits could be so exhausting? And to think she still had three pages worth of math homework to do. Barf.)

“When your father gets back from his trip, I am going to tell him,” Mama said, in her subtle Japanese accent that sometimes made her sound angrier than what she appeared to be. “I'm not happy with these kids calling you names. Is that all they do?”

“Yes, Mama,” Mikasa had lied, far too tired to resume the conversation. “That's all.”

“Hmm. Still, I'm telling him.”

“Yes, Mama.”

She muttered something in her native language, shaking her head. Mikasa rested her head back on her seat, closing her eyes and praying for slumber. It was another fifteen minutes before they made it home, so she thought a nice, short nap would do her well. “ _Kusokurae,_ ” she heard her mother say. She didn't know much Japanese, but she'd heard those words enough times to remember them. _Eat shit_ , they meant. Mama was talking about the bullies.

Mikasa giggled quietly, sleepily, smiling because Mama made the funniest faces when she was mad. Under the weight of anger, her expressions were unnaturally severe for a woman as calm as her. Scary. Like her head might implode.

She wondered if Eren's mother made such funny faces too. And did he laugh at them?

**—o—**

**_Mikasa_ **

_What?_

**_why did the chicken cross the road?_ **

_To get to the other side._

**_WRONG!!! it was actually a duck and then you killed it because you know how to kill ducks_ **

_Very funny._

**_ok your turn_ **

_What's a fish without an eye?_

**_what_ **

_A fsh (because eye and i sound the same get it?)_

**_wow_ **

_It's better than your joke._

**_It’s pretty bad_ **

_Still better than yours._

**_Mikasa_ **

_What?_

**_knock knock_ **

_Who's there?_

**_old lady_ **

_Old lady who?_

**_old lady who!_ **

_I don't get it._

**_say it out loud_ **

_No._

**_do it. you’ll get the joke_ **

_No we're working._

**_if you don't do it I will_ **

_Don't you dare._

**_do it_ **

_No._

**_five_ **

_What are you doing?_

**_foooooour_ **

_Stop this._

**_3_ **

_Eren no._

**_2_ **

_Don't do it._

**_i'm gunna_ **

_Please no._

_“OLD-LADY-WHOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ”_

“Eren Jaeger!”

“Yes?”

“What do you think you're doing, child?”

“Yodeling, ma'am.”

“And did I give you permission to make such an atrocious noise in the middle of your assignment?”

“No, Mrs. Ral, you did not give me permission to yodel.”

“Then why are you yodeling?”

“I got the sudden impulse to do it, ma'am.”

“Get back to work, Eren, and don't do it again. You're distracting your classmates.”

“Sorry.”

_Oh my god I can't stop laughing._

**_me niether that was really funny_ **

_I can't breathe. I'm going to explode. Her face was so funny._

**_i know. demon eyes, rite?_ **

_She looked like she was ready to kill you._

**_like you with the ducks._ **

_Eren stop making me laugh I'm gonna pee myself._

**_but your laugh is so funny. are you wheezing?_ **

_Peeing!_

**_OH NO!_ **

_Just kidding but seriously stop._

**_Mikasa your face is red_ **

_Because I'm trying not to laugh! My poor bladder!_

**_careful you don't actualy pee yourself. sarah and her gang are watching you rite now_ **

_Poop._

**_that too_ **

**—o—**

Her father came home on a Thursday, way after dinner had been served. Mikasa was bathing when she heard the front door open and Mama talking softly, followed by a deeper, more baritone voice. She gasped when she recognized it, whispered, “Papa!” before hurrying to wash off all the soap suds from her hair. She hopped out of the tub to get dry and dressed herself quickly, leaving some of the buttons in her pink pajamas undone.

A few short seconds later, and her bare feet were thumping on the wooden floor all the way to her parents' bedroom, where she swung the door open without knocking and threw herself on the bed beside the giant lump beneath the covers that suggested Papa's presence. She dipped her small frame underneath, poking her father's calves with her toes and making him groan drowsily. She didn't care if he was tired or sleepy from work, she kept poking and nudging until he turned around to lay on his side and face her. Papa pulled the bed sheets up over their heads, kissing her nose, smirking when she responded by giggling. He motioned for her to be quiet so that Mama wouldn't hear them from all the way in the bathroom. Mikasa nodded, then giggled again.

“Hello, princess.”

“Hi, Papa.”

“How was school today?”

Her eyebrows pinched together in thought. Well, today, Eren had sent her notes and he'd also given her extra chocolate, Sarah was absent, and for the first time in a very long time, she was finally able to utilize the school bathrooms. Her lunch was stolen, yes, but lately, Mikasa was feeling grateful for its disappearances, since the misfortune is what brought Eren closer to her in the first place, so…

“Well...” she breathed. Her father noticed the faint blotches of red that flourished on her pasty cheeks when she told him, “It was great.”

“Really?” he asked, pinching her cheeks and smiling as she recoiled from his hands, snickering.

“Yes!”

“Hmm,” he hummed, twirling his fingers into her damp, knotted hair. His blond eyebrows came together, a small crease denting the skin between them. “Your mother told me about your troubles in school. What's this about kids calling you names?”

“Some of them call me chicken curry, Papa.”

“Why?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, that's a weird name to call someone.”

“I know,” the girl sighed, wrinkling her nose. “I don't even like chicken curry.”

Papa was silent for a long time, thinking. The light of the lamp that lit her parents' room filtered in through the pale bed sheets, making his eyes look even softer, even more honey-colored than what they already were. Slowly, Mikasa raised a hand to his cheek, holding the side of his face and closing her eyes to the feeling of his skin, of his sprouting stubble. She listened close to his breathing. _Papa,_ sighed her heart, content. He was there, he was in front of her. Sometimes, Mikasa missed him so much that she felt like she could die. What importance did bullies have when she lived in a world where Papa existed? How much did their opinions of her matter when she had her father to love? They didn't, they held no importance at all.

“Mikasa,” the man whispered, and she suddenly adored the sound of her own name. To hell with the kids at school that make fun of her for being named after a battleship. Her name was _great_. Whenever Papa said it, it made her feel strong. “Listen. Don't tell your mother, but if any of those kids call you bad names again, you have my full permission to punch them.”

“Really, Papa?”

“Yes.”

“In the face?”

“Square in the face.”

She smiled. “Okay.”

He smiled too. “Perfect.”

And their giggles swirled around them in the air. Before she knew it, Papa began attacking her face with such forceful, fervent kisses that Mikasa couldn't help her loud, high-pitched squeal.

“What is going on?” her mother called from the bathroom. Her father's fingers were now digging into her ribs, tickling her so furiously Mikasa flailed and screamed between her laughs.

“Nothing!” Papa called back, the bed sheets cascading down the sides of his head as he knelt over his daughter's squirming body, fingers working wildly at her sides. “The princess has arrived at the castle!” he exclaimed over her frantic shrieks. “Hear ye, hear ye! She has come to make her presence heard!”

“Mama!”

“What's that, your highness?”

“Mama! Help me!”

“She calls for the queen! The queen has been summoned!”

“MamaaaAAAA-AHAHAHAHAHA!!!”

“Queen! Queen, you must help her! She's under attack!”

“Be gentle with her, Charles,” Mama said calmly as she walked into the room, unaffected by her daughter's cries of misery. She continued to fiddle with her earrings, placing them on the bedside table as Mikasa extended her arms to her in vain, tears forming at the corners of her eyes as she wheezed.

“Do you surrender, your highness?”

“No!”

“Do you yield?”

“Never!”

“Then you must pay the price for your stubborn ways!”

“Charles,” Mama sighed, sitting on the edge of the bed with her back to them. “If she pees herself, I'm going to be very angry.”

“Princesses don't pee their pj's!”

“I'm gonna!”

“Charles.”

“Say it.”

“HAHAHAHA I CAN'T— HAHAHA— I CAN'T BREATHE!!!”

“Charles, let her breathe.”

“I surrender!”

“What's that?”

“I SURRENDER!!!”

“She surrenders!” Papa shouted triumphantly, scooping his daughter up in an embrace. “The princess yields!” Their laughter erupted in the air as they fell back and wrestled on the bed, disturbing the mattress under the force of their bodies. Mama rolled her eyes at them. “Animals,” she muttered to herself, her body bobbing in the waves they were producing, the hint of a smile on her lips.

“Gotcha!” Mikasa grinned, pinning her father down on the bed. Compared to him, she was puny, weightless. But Papa faked a pained groan. “Oh, no! She's captured me! I have underestimated her strength!” Mikasa was giggling too hard to keep up her intimidation act. She wiped at the tears in her eyes, her ribs sore from Papa's tickling, her cheeks aching from laughing and smiling so hard.

“Mikasa,” her mother crooned, rising from the bed to go into the bathroom and fetch a hairbrush. “Time to brush your hair and get ready for bed, sweetie.”

“Awww,” she whined, pleading eyes peering down at Papa. “Can I stay here tomorrow? Please?”

“Not a chance.” There was no debating it. Papa's eyes were sad when they met hers again.

“Sorry, baby,” he told her. “But we'll do something this weekend. I promise.”

“Okay,” the girl nodded, relinquishing her hold on his wrists. She went to hop off of him, but his hands came down to cradle both sides of her face, turning it to him.

“Now, what's this about a prince?” he asked her. Mikasa's heart stopped.

“A what?”

“Your mother told me you were saved,” Papa smirked, waggling his eyebrows. “By a prince, eh?”

For a beat, she opened her mouth as if to say something, but her thin lips sealed together and she rolled off of her father and bounced off the bed, declaring curtly, “Bye, gotta go.”

Papa laid still for a bemused second. “Wait, what?”

“Goodnight. Love you.”

“Wait, come back!” he sat up on the bed, his hair a total mess. “Where are you going? You're not going to tell me?”

“I'm sleepy. Bye.”

The door slammed shut behind her and she left. Seconds later, Mama returned from the bathroom with a hairbrush in her hands, gawking at her husband with an expression that was just as lost as his. “What happened?” she asked him. Charles shook his head.

“I have no idea.”

**—o—**

**_Mikasa_ **

_Yes?_

**_snickers or reeses?_ **

_Snickers._

**_okay. mom wanted to know becose we're going grocery shopping. how was lunch today?_ **

_Great. Thank you._

**_your welcome_ **

_Sorry I don't have your mama's flower crown made yet. Ballet and homework are taking over my life._

**_that's okay lol. take all the time you need_ **

_Lol?_

**_what?_ **

_What does that mean?_

**_oh my god you dont know what lol means?_ **

_No._

**_it means long onion legs._ **

_What?_

**_yep_ **

_Onions don't have legs!!!!_

**_i know that's why it's funny_ **

_Okay._

**_ok_ **

_Have you talked to Armin lately?_

**_i havint. you?_ **

_Yeah I saw him yesterday. He's feeling better. He'll be back next week he said._

**_good. i relly miss him_ **

_Me too._

**_how's balley?_ **

_You mean ballet._

**_same shit_ **

_Don't cuss. It's good. How's soccer?_

**_sorry. same as always. have you killed any ducks lately?_ **

_No. Have you learned any new songs on your guitar?_

**_i wish_ **

_I'm sorry._

**_it's ok_ **

_I think the teacher is noticing us passing notes._

**_we should stop_ **

_Yeah bye._

**_see ya!_ **

**—o—**

“Mikasa, are you happy?” Mama asked her one night when she was tucking her in for bed. The question had taken her off guard, made her eyes linger on her mother for a moment.

“Of course, Mama,” she frowned, yawning. Ballet had been particularly hard on her that day and she was very tired, but in Mama's eyes was something she'd never ever seen before. 

“What's wrong?” she asked her mother, placing her small hand on the woman's slender thigh. Her mother sighed, but forced her prettiest smile, tucking a raven lock of hair behind her ear.

“Nothing,” she whispered, leaning forth to kiss her daughter on the top of her head. “Mama worries sometimes, is all.”

“About what?” Mikasa queried, blinking up at her as she pulled away. “Why do you worry, Mama?”

“You're too young to understand, sweetie,” she dismissed, sitting upright on the edge of her bed and smoothing an imaginary ruck she'd made on the covers. “But I worry about your happiness.”

“My happiness?”

“Yes, your happiness. I want to make sure that you are content, that every day of your life, you feel joy and are filled with a profound sense of purpose.”

“Oh.” Mama was right. Mikasa was too young to understand, for she had no idea what the heck she was talking about. “Hmm,” she hummed, blinking sleepily. She couldn't fathom where Mama was going with all this, but something told her that smiling would make her feel better. So she did. Mikasa faked her prettiest smile too, squeezing her mother's hand to get her attention. “I'm okay, Mama. See? I'm smiling.”

“You are indeed,” her mother noted, caressing the side of her face. “But sometimes I wonder: are you smiling on the inside, too?”

“On the inside, Mama?”

“Is your heart happy? Do you smile in your soul?”

She thought hard about the question. “I think so, yes.”

“That is what's important to me, see. That is what Mama worries about: whether her little Mikasa truly smiles on the inside or not. I know that moving has been hard on you; to go so drastically from one world to another, it must be very hard for someone your age. But you like to keep secrets from me, my child, and I don't very much like that at all. Sometimes I fear that what the children in school do to you is worse than what you actually say.”

“Please don't worry,” the girl whispered, closing her eyes. “I'm okay.”

“Do they make fun of you? Do they make you feel bad about who you are? About how you look?” Mikasa didn't answer her question, instead opened her eyes only to gaze at some blank point in space. “So it really _is_ bad, honey?” her mother murmured, eyes going soft. “I need you to tell me if it is. I will call the school immediately.”

“No, it's not that bad. There's people who are nice to me too. People who defend me.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Mama was quiet for a moment, fiddling with the wedding band on her ring finger—an old nervous habit of hers. “And is that…” she started tentatively, “that… prince you mentioned?”

Mikasa brought her index finger to her lips, pressing the side to her mouth and breathing, “Shh.”

“Shhh. Right, right,” her mother nodded, smiling a little. “I won't tell your father.”

“Thank you.”

They snickered quietly, faces scrunching up in identical grins, and Mikasa deemed the conversation over, closing her eyes slowly to submerge herself into a deep, enticing sleep. She waited for Mama to kiss her forehead and bid her goodnight, maybe even sing her a song or two, but what she got instead was her long, thin fingers lacing through her own, and yet another grown up, motherly question.

“How is this uh,” she hesitated, fixing a fallen strap of her nightgown back over her shoulder. Mikasa's eyes fell to her mother's chest, watching as the pale skin swayed subtly with her breathing. “This… prince of yours. How is he with you?”

The sleepy girl smiled softly, thinking fondly of the boy. “He's very kind, Mama. He's kind to me even without knowing me.”

“Is he cute?”

“He is.”

“Does he have a pretty name?”

“Oh, yes.”

“What is it?”

“I can't tell you.”

Her mother gasped, wounded. “Why not?”

“It's a secret.”

“Hmm,” her bony shoulders slumped, mildly disappointed. “Can I at least know what he looks like?”

“He looks like…” Mikasa started, rather unsure of where to go. How could she describe someone like Eren to Mama—to anyone? He was loud, and impulsive and brave, but he was also shy in the sense that he wouldn't personally approach her. He had the brightest eyes she'd ever seen on a human being, and the brightest smile, and the messiest, brownest hair. He was made of extremes. God had crafted him to be extraordinary. He had a small dimple, a secret, that flashed whenever he grinned or laughed too hard. And a voice like a royal—confident, commanding; it made itself heard. “He looks like…” she began again, tapping a finger on her chin. “A nice mug of hot chocolate. With marshmallows and whipped cream.”

“What?” her mother laughed. “Really?”

“Yes!” the girl chirped, laughing too. “The feeling I get when I drink hot chocolate is the feeling I feel in my tummy when I see him.”

“Do you fancy him, Mikasa?” Mama asked, quirking a brow.

“No.” At least she didn't _think_ she did. “I don't think so.”

“Then why do you call him a prince if you don't fancy him?”

“I'm not lying, Mama,” was her whisper, her dark eyes twinkling in the light. “He saved me. He made me feel special when everyone was cruel. He made me feel like I belong. That's what princes do in all those stories you read to me. They help the princess remember her worth. They make her feel beautiful and important. Right?”

“Yes…”

“That's why he is a prince to me. He reminds me of one. He's so nice, Mama. He makes me feel like I'm normal.”

“But, Mikasa,” Mama breathed, her features falling sadly. “You _are_ normal.”

A solemn darkness filled the places in her eyes that had twinkled only seconds before. Mikasa bowed her gaze, lamenting, “No, I'm not, Mama. There's nothing normal about me.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I know it. I feel it deep inside. I'm not like everyone else.”

“Does this… sadden you?”

“Sometimes.”

Her mother's brows knitted together. She picked at some invisible lint on Mikasa's bed, thinking for a long moment before rising from her daughter's bed to get her favorite doll. When she returned, her body sinking part of the mattress where she sat, she smoothed the doll's frazzled hair and handed her over to Mikasa.

“Listen to me,” she whispered, lifting the comforter so that it covered Ningyo too. Her hands were like warm cotton on Mikasa's skin, holding her face and squishing her cheeks softly. Only after kissing the tip of her nose, did her mother speak again. “There is nothing wrong with being different. There is something marvelous living inside of you. You are gentle, and strong, and brilliant. You are sensitive to the world around you and perceive things solely as they are. I believe—I truly believe, that you are magnificent, Mikasa.”

The young girl's features slowly brightened one by one, spirits noticeably raised as she looked deep into her mother's eternal, dark eyes and smiled, “Really?”

“Yes,” she smiled back, pinching her nose. “I know it in my scraggly old bones.”

Mikasa giggled, clasping Mama's thin wrist and pushing her hands away from her face gently. “You're not so old, Mama.”

Her mother, her beautiful, gorgeous mother, gave a long, tired sigh. “I'm not so young anymore either.”

“Nonsense,” the child muttered. Mama grinned.

“The kids in your school? Don't let them take away your strength. That is your identity, who you are. Honor yourself, Mikasa. Always. When the world tells you that you are nothing, that is when you _have_ to believe in yourself the most. Nobody else can do it for you.” She propped an arm behind her, twisting her body sideways so that she was reclined just over the bump of Mikasa's body beneath the comforter. Her small, pointy nose wrinkled suddenly. “Not even a prince, you hear?”

“Okay.”

“You will honor yourself, yes? For your Mama?”

“I will.”

“Pinky swear?”

“Pinky swear.”

They coiled their pinkies together and Mama pecked the side of her small hand, then leaned forward and kissed her eyelids, and her forehead, and whispered, “I love you, sweetie. I love you so, so much.”

“Can Ningyo get a kiss too?”

“Of course,” she gasped, slapping a hand on her thigh as if she were mad at herself for having forgotten. “ _Oyasumi_ ,” she whispered to the doll after she'd received her kiss as well. “Goodnight, baby,” she whispered to her daughter, kissing her forehead one last time.

“Goodnight,” Mikasa smiled, feeling safe. Mama booped their noses together.

“Don't suck your thumb.”

“I won't,” she promised, and with that, her mother stood to walk away. Mikasa's eyes lingered sleepily on the shape of her body, how slender and graceful she seemed when she walked. _Your mother is the most beautiful woman in the world,_ Papa always said to her. And she had to agree wholeheartedly. She definitely was.

“Mama?” she called after her mother flicked the lights off. Mama turned her head and looked at her, one hand curled around the doorknob, her body already halfway out the door.

“Yes, honey?”

“Do onions have legs?”

Mother stared at daughter for a silent moment, frowning at the question. “No, they don't.”

Mikasa hummed and shut her eyes, so Mama closed the door slowly—still frowning—and watched the light that crept in from the hallway thinning gradually on her child’s bed.

As the yellow glow ebbed to a thin slit, she could've sworn she heard Mikasa whisper, “See, Ningyo? I told ya.”

**—o—**

**_fite them! beat them up! punch them til their bloody and crying on their knees!_ **

_What are you talking about?_

**_don't let them treat you so bad!_ **

_You mean Sarah and the bullies?_

**_YEA!_ **

_There's no point._

**_yes their is_ **

_What?_

**_you defend yourself. that’s the point_ **

_But they don't matter. Mama says they don't matter._

**_fite! fite!_ **

_Eren calm yourself._

**_sit with me at lunch tomarrow?_ **

_I can't._

**_why not? i want you to_ **

_They'll all be there. Sarah sits with you at lunch._

**_so? please come i will defend you_ **

_That won't be necessary._

**_Mikasa please sit with me at lunch_ **

_No._

**_pretty please?_ **

_No._

**_with a cherry on top?_ **

_A cherry?_

**_yea_ **

_On top of what?_

**_forget it_ **

_Okay._

**_sit with me_ **

_No._

**_don't you get tired of the libary?_ **

_I like it. It has books._

**_the cafeteria has food and peapol and that's better than books_ **

_Never._

(He sent her a drawing of children sitting at a large, round table. Two of them had arrows pointed at them. One said, **_me_ ** and the other, **_you_ **.)

_Stop it._

**_please?_ **

_NO NO NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo_

**_i'll bring you extra chocolate_ **

_What?_

**_you know what_ **

_What kind of chocolate?_

**_dark_ **

_Fine._

**_yay!_ **

_I'll bring your mother's flower crown too then._

**_sweet!_ **

_Okay._

**_yay!_ **

_Stop sending me notes._

**_bye_ **

_Bye._

**_tomarrow. lunch. remmember_ **

_STOP SENDING NOTES!!!_

**_okay fsh. bye_ **

**—o—** ****

Mikasa was very excited.

She picked out the best flowers in Mama's garden for her flower crown. It had taken her nearly two hours to select the best ones—and only the best would do. The flower crown needed to be perfect.

It was already nighttime by the time she came back home, dropping her basket on the small desk in her room before commencing her work. She labored for a long time to perfect the flower crown, weaving daisies, carnations, small heathers and asters carefully into the halo she told Mama to make for a base. When all the flowers were secured, she tied a bow around the back for decoration, sighing in exhaustion and admiring her creation.

She didn't get much sleep that night, both because she was far too excited to fall asleep and also because she'd gone to bed so late, she had to wake up for school a mere five hours later. She'd never gone a day in her life with such little rest, but when Mama took her to school that morning, Mikasa was as energetic as ever, happily awaiting the day ahead.

Lunch time couldn't have come sooner. Mikasa hid the flower crown in a safe spot in the library, the librarian having promised that she would keep an eye on the precious piece. When Mikasa had returned some hours later to retrieve it, the old lady asked her who it was for.

“It's for you-know-who's mother,” the girl whispered, unable to contain her smile. “It's my way of thanking her for all the meals she's made for me.” The librarian gasped loudly and cheered, so utterly overjoyed that Mikasa felt for a moment that the woman was exaggerating, but old people did that sometimes. “Go, child!” she encouraged, “Tell me what his reaction is when he gets it, I want to know!”

“Yes!” and she was off.

The school cafeteria was teeming with bodies and clattering with noise. Chatter filled the air, laughter rumbled the walls. The floor shook beneath the mighty stomp of running children. It was a damn circus. By God, a dreadfully intimidating place.

Mikasa swallowed—

_Gulp._

_Ba-dump, ba-dump._

—and commenced to walk.

Her heart was beating so fast she felt that she could vomit. Her eyes surveyed the cafeteria, looking for a messy brown head among the crowd of blondes and brunettes. Not many kids had hair like Mikasa's, she realized, as she looked around. Hers was the darkest, the straightest, the only one up in a pristine, flawless bun. It was an entire minute before she found what she quickly recognized to be Eren's head, tilted back to catch the bits of food his friends were throwing at him.

Eren. He sat on a table on the farthest wall to the left. She could tell by the way his shoulders shook as he swayed to the sides that he was laughing. There was so much noise, she couldn't hear his laughter. But she could make it out, imagine it, decipher the patterns it made as it was released into the air.

Smoothing down the skirt of her school uniform, Mikasa began to make her way towards him.

His back was to her. He hadn't seen her yet. With every step, she gradually drew closer. Closer. Closer. Closer, until she was halfway there. Her heart was in her throat. She swallowed dryly to force it back down to her chest. “Calm yourself, heart,” she whispered to it. “It's okay. We're almost there. Before you know it, it'll be over.” A grape was tossed to Eren's face. He went to catch it with his mouth, but it bumped his cheek and bounced off to the ground instead. This time, she could hear his laughter perfectly. It rattled her soul.

Mikasa was a mere four tables away when one of his friends stilled suddenly and nudged his shoulder. They whispered something in his ear. Eren turned around in his seat. He looked at her.

Smiles were exchanged.

A dimple flashed incredulously.

Mikasa's heart quickened even more, threatening to burst at any second.

She was almost there. She was so close. She could already see the shimmer in his eyes, the dimple with his smile, the one crooked tooth in his grin. She could already hear his voice, saying hi to her, calling out her name, asking—

“Where do you think you're going?”

Sarah. Suddenly, she materialized out of nowhere and cut into her line of walking. She stood tall like a skyscraper, shrinking Mikasa to a halt in the middle of her steps.

“Uh…”the small girl started, wetting her lips. “I would like to get through, please.”

Sarah guffawed. Her cruel, malicious laugh gashed her like a dagger. “And what's that?” she pointed at the flower crown in Mikasa's hands. “Think you're going to a party, little gink?”

“No,” Mikasa gritted through her teeth, but soon realized that her hands were shaking. Eren. She needed to get to Eren. There was no time to waste. Couldn't Sarah wait until she had finished with him to bully her? “Please let me through,” she asked her nicely. The blonde girl responded with a scowl.

“Make me.”

Dark eyes flew to Eren, who was slowly rising to his feet, the smile wiped clean off his features. Everyone in his table was rising to their feet as well, she noticed. Actually, everyone around her was too. The cafeteria screeched with the scratch of chairs scraping the floor, the soft murmur of children training their eyes on her.

“He wants nothing to do with you,” Sarah seethed venomously. Mikasa had to blink up at her a couple of times before she realized she was speaking of Eren. “You're nothing. You're just a filthy gook. Run along, little Chinkerbell, before I hurt you,” she jabbed a finger on her chest, pushing her back a little. Mikasa swallowed again, praying loudly in her being. Heat rose to her cheeks, tears stung in her eyes. _Kami, please, make her go away. Make her leave me in peace. I just want to get through her. I only want to—_

Suddenly, quick fingers snatched the flower crown from her little hands. Just like that, in a mere flash, Mikasa was barren of her sacred gift, of her long hours of hard work. She didn't even have enough time to breathe before Sarah was holding it up to show everyone.

“Look at this, everybody!” she announced to the audience of keen ears. “Chicken Curry made a flower crown!”

A chorus of laughter struck Mikasa across the face. The children giggled and tittered, forming a cruel, swooshing sea of mockery. Only Eren's face twisted with fury instead of amusement.

“Give it back, Sarah,” he growled at her, adapting a tone Mikasa had never heard him use before. There was no hint of playfulness in his words. He was giving her an order. “Stop being so mean. She's done nothing to you.”

“She can speak for herself, Jaeger!” a boy screamed a few tables away. Eren's cheeks were turning red with anger.

“It's not fair!” he hissed. “Leave her alone!”

“Ooooooooooh,” someone crooned. “Look! Eren has a crush on her.”

“Shut up.”

“He has a crush on the gook!”

“Be quiet!”

“Eren, how sweet! Is she your girlfriend?”

“I didn't know you liked chicken curry _that_ much!”

“ _Eren and Chinkerbell sitting in a tree,_ ” they sang. “ _K-I-S-S-I-N-G!_ ”

Mikasa's breathing suffered under the weight of everything that was happening around her. She felt the fear, the suffocation, the hyperventilation that strangled her lungs. Her breaths were shallow and her eyes shot once more to Eren, peering at him through a veil of tears. _Fight back_ , he mouthed to her, ignoring the kids around him. Defend yourself. Fight back!

“You know what?” Sarah's cheeks were red with anger, too. A deep hatred boiled deep inside of her. She glowered at Mikasa so fiercely, her blue eyes seemed to come aflame. “I hate you,” she spat, “and I hate this stupid crown.”

Instantly, a flurry of motions took place before Mikasa’s very eyes. Sarah's hands worked furiously at ripping the crown to pieces. Flower petals rained down to the ground like colorful snow. Mikasa's gasp was loud. “No!” she screamed, but the thing was hurled violently to the ground and Sarah's shoe came stomping down on it over and over again until the flowers—what were left of them—were all crushed.

The poor girl sobbed helplessly as she watched her creation be destroyed. The entire cafeteria whirred with activity, confusion, excitement. Some children cheered, some objected, some averted their eyes in indifference, some said nothing at all, only pitied the girl as she cried freely before all of them.

 _They don't matter,_ a little voice said in her head. _They don't matter. Don't let them see you cry. Don't let them take your strength, your dignity. Honor yourself. Be strong. Do it for Mama._

But it was too late.

“No, no, no,” Mikasa wept, cradling her face in her hands. Sobs wracked her small body, filling her heart with darkness and pain. Why was the world so cruel? Why did it have to be so mean to her? What had she done to deserve this? “Please, stop.”

“Ha!” the taller girl grinned when she felt satisfied. “Look, I made it prettier for you.” Mikasa's shoulders shook as she peered down at the ruined flower crown, scattered petals broken and dirty from being stepped on speckling the floor. “Let this be a lesson, Rice Ball,” Sarah smirked, leaning close to hiss at her. “Stay away from him.”

Heartbroken and winded, Mikasa fell to her knees, scrambling to retrieve the ribbon Mama had given her for her flower crown. The bow, although dirtied, remained intact. She hiccuped for a moment, tears dripping off her chin, snot running down her upper lip, her fingers brushing the mottled bow she had worked so hard to perfect. A few tables away, Eren stood, gaping at the scene before him. 

Mikasa's body remained on the floor, defeated. Her sobs tore deep, smiling crevices in Eren's heart. He couldn't breathe. He wanted so desperately to go out there and save her, but his arm was clutched tightly in his friend's hand, stopping him from stepping forward.

Her beautiful dark eyes never rose to meet his again—and how he wished that they would. How he yearned to see them, tears and all, to tell them it's alright, that he's not angry, that the ruined flower crown is not her fault. In his heart, he told her he was sorry. He wished telepathy was a real thing, so that he could give her insight to his thoughts and remind her that she's worth much more than what she's going through, that she is so much better than everyone else, so much stronger.

But he didn't need to remind her.

Suddenly, Sarah turned to walk away, and in the dwindling noise of cheers and groans and laughter, a mild, calmer voice rippled through the air.

“Hey, Sarah.”

“Yeah?” The blonde girl smiled, turning to face Mikasa, who was slowly rising to her feet, the ravaged flower crown trembling in her fingers.

“You forgot something,” she said, sniffling. Her nose and cheeks were pink from crying. Eren could see the color all the way from where he stood. “You left the ribbon.”

“What?” Sarah squinted her eyes at her. “What did you say?”

“The bow,” Mikasa's voice was brittle. She looked so small. Eren wanted to close his eyes, to look away from the impending ridicule—but he couldn't desert her like that. He kept his eyes on her. “You left it intact.”

Everyone stared in confusion as the small girl handed the remains of the flower crown to the bully. Sarah took it, scoffing loudly, looking around her and grinning, “Can you believe this girl?” But when her head turned to face her again, a fist flew straight into her face and crashed against her nose.

A sharp, cracking sound shook the air, and a flare of blonde hair streaked everyone's vision as the taller girl flew back a few feet and landed on her back. Gasps billowed around them, and the place went eerily silent and rigid with shock. Not a single breath was drawn when Sarah sat upright on the ground, holding a hand to her nose, wide eyes round and full of panic.

The next second, blood was dripping from her hand, tears were pouring from her eyes in rivulets. She wailed, crying for her mother. A few of the students attempted to go and help her, but Mikasa stood so tall among the crowd that nobody dared to move a single hair, suddenly fearful of the girl they'd thought could be squashed so easily before.

“I am **NOT** **_CHICKEN CURRY!!!!!!_ **” Mikasa roared, balling her fists by her sides. All eyes were startled. Some children even jumped. “I am not weak! I am not a gook! I'm strong! I'm stronger than all of you!”

Nobody objected.

“And you,” she pointed down at Sarah, who inched away from her in fear. “Don't you _ever_ touch me again. You will respect me, or you will not look at me or even breathe near me, do you understand?”

The blonde nodded vigorously, moaning, “Yes.”

“That flower crown you ruined wasn't mine,” Mikasa said, her soft, meek voice growing to a mighty boom. “Do you realize what you've done? You ruined something that belonged to Eren's mother! You are mean and nasty and full of dark, evil things. I feel sorry for you. I feel sorry for all the cruel things you’ve done to me and now to Eren. Apologize to us!”

“I'm sorry.”

“What?”

“I'm sorry!”

“Say it louder. I don't think he heard you all the way back there.”

“I'm sorry, Mikasa! I'm sorry, Eren! I'll never do it again!”

Mikasa sniffled, drying her tears with the edge of her wrist. “Oh, you won't. Don't worry,” and when she retrieved the flower crown from the ground, she undid the bow laced around it for a stunned, quiet second. It was undone in a breath, removed from the crown and held tightly in Mikasa's pale, bruised hand. Sarah's snivels punctured the room as the smaller girl made her way towards her, crimson drops of blood dappling her navy-colored skirt and the floor. In a calm, controlled gesture, Chinkerbell placed the flower crown on her blonde, stupid head, whispering, “Now, it's yours.”

Sarah was the one sobbing now, the one on her knees, and the entire place watched as Mikasa spun on her feet and walked away, leaving an astounded sea of children gaping behind her. Some went to help Sarah, who screamed in pain and cried out once more for her mom. A second too late, teachers came running into the cafeteria. Someone must've gone and alarmed them, but it was all for naught, for all they found was a weeping child, a broken nose, and the remainders of a flower crown dirtying her flaxen hair.

Eren would've cheered—laughed, even—had he not been so utterly astounded. His eyes followed Mikasa's body until she exited the cafeteria and he couldn't see her anymore. “Wow,” he breathed. He couldn't help but feel, but hope, that he had played a small role in what just happened.

He saw the teachers scramble worriedly around Sarah, who wailed, “It was Mikasa! Mikasa! She punched my nose!” Her cries echoed in the room, in the small bodies around her. The children watched as she was escorted out the cafeteria, still wearing that ruined flower crown and cradling her nose with blood pouring from her hands. Dots of red trailed the floor behind her. Some fallen petals did too. Mikasa's roar lingered in the air. _I'm stronger than all of you,_ it reminded.

And it was true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh, this chapter never gets easier to read. for any of y'all that got bullied in school for your race, i'm giving you a warm, giant hug in solidarity.
> 
> i tweaked the format a bit: mostly to change the font in Eren's handwriting to stand out against Mikasa's and articulate a bit better what their backgrounds were as children. it's funny to think that NOY Eren in present chapters is so into literature and books but was so clumsy with grammar when he was a little boy. i'm soft.
> 
> see you next friday <3


	9. Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

It's cold outside, as Jean had told her that it was—as is blatantly obvious by the way her exhales billow out as smoke, how her shoulders shiver and her stilettos crunch the ice beneath their soles. How odd it is, how funny, that tonight of all nights the buildings and the skyscrapers whistle quietly instead of exploding with sound and life and music. It's Christmas, but the world seems to mourn rather than rejoice.

Or perhaps that’s just her perception.

Perhaps parties are alive everywhere, hidden away within walls and lights and towers so that Mikasa is as disconnected from their currents of activity as she was to the people from the gathering she's just left. Jean was right; his coat is warmer, much warmer than hers. And she's gotten a lot better at walking in heels, she realizes. Her steps are brisk and purposeful, although aimless. But she doesn't wobble. That's nice. A first.

Mikasa doesn't really know where she's going, but she's going, alright. The objective tonight, she tells herself, is to keep on walking. The tops of buildings scrape the starless sky and her bare legs prickle in the cold but she's not cold, no, not really. She has a purpose and she doesn't at the same time. 

But that's okay.

She just keeps walking because walking is her motive now, she reminds herself again, her only motive. She just has to get away. ( _Get away from what, Mikasa? What exactly is it that you're running from this time?_ )

Ice crackles below her feet, popping and wreathing her exposed little toes like silent flames curling around firewood. That'd be nice, she thinks. Heat. But there's no way she's going back to that party, no way. She'd rather freeze stiff than return to that phony champagne flute and that phony smile on her lips and the phony expression of interest on her face.

She misses Jean already.

But that’s okay.

She thinks of the little lights she'd seen earlier, how they'd glowed. Her favorite compilation of colors. Due to the air's icy nip, Mikasa's pallid cheeks sprout out soft, rosy tints that resemble that of a flower. Her nose is runny, and she accidentally smears some of her makeup on Jean's coat when she goes to wipe her snot off on the sleeve. A smudged streak of her lipstick stains the expensive, cosmopolitan outerwear, and she sighs internally at the thought of having to clean it off later herself. She feels a sudden urge to rasp her entire face clean on the coat sleeves, to rid herself of the makeup that masks her imperfections, hides her thin, dainty scar; rids her of herself, her flaws. With all this makeup on, she feels she no longer resembles her mother. The air is so cold. It makes her face itch even more.

Mikasa walks past a park, recognizing it instantly. Park Rose, Eren had called it. It's the name it has acquired from “all the damn rose bushes” it homes. The entire park illuminates with Christmas lights, billions of tiny bulbs curling up and around the trunks, the branches of every lanky, leafless tree. The last thing her eyes catch is a solitary water fountain, and you won't believe the inexplicable force that tugs at her bones for her to run over and splash her face to wash off all the artificial paint. To bare herself to the universe, say here I am, this is me, with my scars and my uneven skin tone and my inability to walk properly in heels.

Mikasa picks up her pace.

She walks right past the movie theater where she’d stumbled into Eren all those days ago. She can almost see their figures, twirling like dancers in the frigid air before tumbling towards the wall where Eren had curled a strong, safe arm around her and kept her from catapulting off his chest and falling to the ground. And she'd known it right then, before even looking up at him, before meeting his eyes, that it was him because that smell, his smell, it was ancient and delicate and homey and there's only one person in the world that can smell like that. It used to be the smell that lingered on her scarf, the crimson scarf she always wears as a staple because she has as much fashion sense as a toe.

Mikasa walks even faster.

 _Clack, clack, clack,_ her stilettos thump on the concrete. Crystals of ice and glass and who knows what else crunch below her steps. Where the hell is she even going? She's on a mission, though, by God. Brisk and fast and serious, she trots onward like a steed. Godspeed, she tells herself. Godspeed.

It's only when her legs start to burn that she thinks to stop and gauge exactly where she finds herself.

She's seen these streets. She's seen these apartments. She's seen that lamppost, and that mailbox, and that flower pot and that car. She's seen—

Eren?

Mikasa stops cold on her feet.

Her insides jolt forth as if her spirit intends on still carrying her forward. But she's frozen, frozen in place because the figure she sees standing a few feet away looks a lot like something green and blue and gold and soft and delicate and nice and homey. With her breath high up in her lungs, she balls her fists and flickers her gaze to her surroundings. Pounding in her chest, her heart starts screaming, _Eren! That's Eren! Look at where you've ended up! You're right by his apartment! It's him! It's him! Go to him!_

“Mikasa?”

“Oh!” she gasps, hands flailing, landing on her chest.

And of course, it's him. With no coat on. And an unlit cigarette between his lips, his eyes as wide and round as giant marbles. “Mik—” he gapes at her for a startled second, promptly removing the small tube from his lips and running a hand down his mouth. He seems almost embarrassed, like she's caught him doing something he prefers to keep hidden. Chaste smoke rises from his mouth, carried in his breath, and Mikasa wallows in the familiarity of his voice when he asks her, “What… What are you doing here?”

“Uh…” Her eyes dart around, fretful. She catches herself wringing her hands together, so she balls them into fists. A chill breeze slips in between her teeth and “How did you know it was me?”

Mikasa cringes at the awkward waver in her voice, but Eren doesn't notice. No. He smirks. In fact, he smiles. In fact, there's no stubble, no crazy hair—in fact, he looks… good? He's shaved. And his hair's pulled back in a knot behind his head, some hairs falling out to frame his forehead, his neck, his—

“Who else would be walking around in the middle of winter wearing heels and a dress?” 

“I…” _Breathe, okay. Breathe. Just act casual. Be cool. Be cool._ “What are you doing out with no coat on?”

_Nice, Mikasa. Smooth._

“Um…” Okay, but she can't deny the way his eyes struggle to hold still. They dribble down the length of her body, eyeing coat, hands, kneecaps, toes, then darting right back up to her face. “I was taking out the trash,” he explains simply, clearing his throat. Mikasa nods her head softly.

“Oh.”

The cigarette’s idle between his fingers. Without a second's thought, he flings it to the side, letting it roll on the sidewalk. And isn’t that a waste? 

“So what are you doing here?” he tries not to choke, feeling an overwhelming mix of panic and excitement. Funny how the two can rise, and mesh, spur something in him. Her lashes flicker with her flitting gaze, jumping here and there and not really focusing on him.

“Um…” she sighs and thinks for a moment, frowning. “I'm just walking around?”

“By yourself?”

“Mhm. I like being alone.”

“Yes, I know,” he breathes, gaze dripping to her shins, her neck, her hair, her lips. “Are you lost?”

“Not really,” she sputters, adjusting the strap of her purse on her shoulder. Eren's eyebrows slide up in skepticism. Mikasa sighs. “Okay, yes.”

“Where are you coming from?” he asks, slipping his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. Mikasa's gaze flits all over again. She looks jumpy, nervous. She swallows hard. Eren's eyes catch the faint bob of her throat. They linger there, on her neck.

“The Plaza,” comes her lisp, breathless voice, pulling his gaze back up to her eyes. He dwells on the curve of her lashes, the shadows that fan outward and cast streaks of darkness with every blink. “Again.”

“Party?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” He nods up at Hitch's apartment. “Same here.”

Mikasa peers up at the building beside them, and a long silence unfurls between them. For a moment, she marvels at the architecture, and Eren tries to imagine what she's thinking. Can she hear the loud banter of his friends? He sure can. Ymir's shouting again, but Ymir's always shouting. He wonders if she actually chugged that vodka bottle like she said she would. She's kind of… extreme like that. All of his friends are kind of extreme like that. It helps him appreciate Mikasa's tranquil aura a little more. “People,” he hears her whisper suddenly, her eyes falling back to him. “Too many, I just… I needed a break.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling,” he smiles, and she smiles too. Stillness drapes around them like a blanket, sheltering them from the rest of the world. It's just her, and him; and there's music playing quietly, muffled from way up in Hitch's flat but none of them can really hear it anymore. Eren rolls his tongue in his cheek, eyeing the way Mikasa swallows again and tucks her hands into her coat pockets. The thing's big on her, he notices. And by the way the shoulders are tailored, he can tell that it belongs to a man. Jean, he remembers Mikasa calling her fiancé. She's wearing his coat.

“Um…” Eren feigns a cough. It takes a lot of courage, but he musters up just enough to ask her, “Do you want me to walk you back?”

This makes her figure perk up instantly.

For a second, the startled circles of her eyes carol with excitement. But just as quickly, her face darkens and her gaze sinks low. “No, no, Eren, I—”

“It wouldn't be a problem.”

“No, I can just get a taxi or something, it's okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I've—” Her fingers rummage through the contents of her purse. It's a mere few seconds, and her features fall disappointingly. “Or not.”

“What's wrong?”

“I left my wallet.”

“Oh, shit,” he chuckles, and smiles at how she squeezes her eyes shut, thumping a fist softly on her forehead.

“God. I'm such an idiot.”

“Mikasa.” She opens her eyes at the sound of her name. “Let me walk you back.”

“Eren, no. It's Christmas. Go back to your party. Have fun. I…” her mouth twists with something sour, brows furrowing enough for the crease in between them to pop out. “I shouldn't even be here.”

“Here's the thing,” Eren says, and suddenly now Mikasa has to ease the springs she's wound up so tightly, loosen the taut grip of her own perception of reality. Dumbly, she questions if it's truly him, if it's not just the dying embers of her mind smoldering with the phantom smoke of her memories. But his image is warm and fuzzy and tangible before her, and as he takes a step, two, three forward, his eyes glow: blue, green, and gold—she eyes the colors, whispers them intimately in her heart.

Eren talks again. 

“I could just go back in there and act like I didn't see you tonight. Get drunk off my ass and genuinely forget I ever saw you. Except that I can't do that now. Because I saw you. And you're all on your own in this huge city wearing a dress and heels that look like they'll get caught in the first grater you step on. So, really, this is just me being selfish so that, you know, my conscience doesn't kill me tonight when I go to bed and wonder if you got jumped on your way back or something.”

Despite herself, Mikasa laughs. “Oh.”

“Yeah, so… please. Let me walk you. Unless you're planning on walking around some more?”

“No, I'm… I'm starting to feel the cold now.”

“Yeah, me too,” he shivers, but doesn't move. The girl snorts quietly, allowing that pesky strand of hair that keeps falling over her face to slip out and dangle over her eyes. They both smile and they both hide their hands inside their pockets and they both are caught off guard when Mikasa says, “Get your coat, Eren.”

He lights up. His eyes go happy and wide and he gasps, “So I'm walking you?”

“Sure.”

“Sweet!” Dimple. Blue, green, gold. A swift turn on his heels and, “Alright, come on.” 

Eren's quick to trot up to the door of his apartment building, but Mikasa's feet take some reluctant steps before she balks at the bottom of the steps. He seems to sense her hesitation, turning to face her with his hand curled around the doorknob, cold air slipping into the building from where he’d opened the door. For a beat, they just look at one another: Eren's eyes shining down at her, Mikasa's staring warily up at him.

“Come on in,” he prompts quietly, beckoning to the door to encourage her. “You can get warm inside.”

“Eren, no,” she whispers, balling a hand against her chest. There's fear in her eyes, and he doesn't understand it. “That's a terrible idea.”

He frowns. “Why?”

“Because you're at a party and they're your friends and I don't want to intrude. I'm already being a nuisance enough as it is.”

“No, you're not” he scoffs, frowning deeper. “Come on, there's heat inside.”

“Eren—”

“Yes?”

“I shouldn't.”

His lips press together in a thin line. He sighs, shoulders dropping, and there's a tired nuance to his groan when he shuts the door and comes down the steps to stand in front of her. 

“You know, I've realized two things in the short amount of time since we ran into each other,” he says, his figure occupying the pupils of her eyes as she peers up at him in mild shock. “Do you wanna know what they are?”

Mikasa's quiet for a moment, blinking. He's huge from where he stands now, way too tall and she's way too tiny. His hands are back inside his pockets and he shivers again but doesn't make for the door, instead, leans in closer, towering over her now, and says, “Number one: you suck at dressing appropriately for the weather.” He pauses to gauge her reaction, continuing when he finds none. “And two: I don't know why or what it is, but every time I look at you you look like you're running for your life.”

Mikasa's eyes wince at his words. She's sturdy, standing tall despite their height difference. Her jaw tightens. “Is that all?”

“No. Another thing is, you're always cold. And scared. And you keep showing up at the randomest times, Mikasa. Like you've fallen down from the sky and landed on my face.”

A breath: “I'm sorry.”

Eren grunts, throwing his head back. “And you apologize about _everything._ God, it makes me so angry. Like, I wanna punch something!”

“You always want to punch something.”

“That's not the point.”

“Then what _is_ the point?”

They stare at each other for a moment, and Mikasa's face is so ambiguous it makes something in him crack. She's not exactly being austere, but she's pretty clear on where she draws the line, and he knows—they both know—that he's teetering pretty damn close to it.

Even more so, Eren allows himself to sigh dramatically, to look pointlessly to the side because his eyes will inevitably come back to her. And when he looks at her again, she's so unknown to him, with her lipstick and her makeup and her dress and that coat and her heels but then she's also the only thing in his life he can truly recognize, recalling those eyes and that hair and those lips and that scar and that serious fucking look she's fixing him with. And he wants so bad to reach out, to act upon the surge of glory burgeoning inside him and pull her up a step and kiss her, grab her face and let her taste the words he cannot bring himself to say. 

The muffled music and chatter above them brings him back into himself.

And he stares at her.

And he realizes.

That fuck, it's Christmas today and six years ago on this exact day, she left him. Six years ago on this exact day, she held him and loved him and fucked him and promised she would always be with him and now look at where they are and look at how she looks at him and how he looks at her and maybe if circumstances were different they would be able to pick up where they left off, resume the sentences that were cut short so abruptly and make love like in those cheesy romantic movies they both loathe so much and she's wearing these weird-ass heels and another man's coat but in this ideal world Eren has fathomed she wears her own clothes and she runs into his arms and says nothing, lets her body say it all. And how nice it would be to have this sort of cruel reunion, to have her on the very date she broke his heart and let her mend him back together again, word for word, piece by piece, promise after promise. 

She’s so close to him.

So close.

And he can see her shins and half her legs and envisions the contours of her body, how the hollows and the shadows would feel like pressed against his skin and maybe this fiancé of hers really does love her, maybe he yearns for her the way Eren does too. But something tells him that he doesn’t. No. No, he doesn’t. That the grip she's got on him isn't as painful or as tight and it's not fair because he's the only man she does this to and she's the only woman who does this to him and God, how he aches to have her. He has to fight the urge every second that she's near as if his blood were made of iron and her bones were magnets that draw him in when he’s too close. And in this ideal world where they meet again, Mikasa's not about to get married, instead she's happy and she's free and not this thin and Eren would know because he'd take her to his room and watch the garments disappear and see her chest stutter, her eyelids flutter, the momentum build, build, and there'd be no gap between her thighs and no protruding rib cage, only her fullness and her curves and the chiseled silhouette of a dancer, not a girl, not this pale, trembling woman that sighs her worries into the air as they garner into thin, ephemeral smoke that vanishes as quickly as his self-control does. And he wants so bad to beg _please don't change, please don't change too much 'cause I can't bear it, I can't take it, I can't even look at you in the face because it kills me, you make me stupid, you turn me raw_ but that is selfish and inappropriate even though Eren is really good at being both.

So he sighs again and looks around, and looks helplessly right back at her. “Actually, I think I lost it.” The point. And the giant lurch his heart takes when her severity breaks and she smiles—you wouldn't believe how she smiles at him. Winded, he finds himself dizzy and out of breath and it takes him a moment to recollect himself, to wipe his mouth with the edge of his wrist and rip away from her, trot back up the steps and pretend not to feel her gaze sticking to his back, burning through his clothes and singeing him all the way through to the bone. Vulnerable and inappropriate and ever-so-selfish, he soothes himself by reminding: _I was there first. I taught her how to fight and live and love herself. She's the woman that she is because of me._

And it’s so fucked up of him to think that.

He knows it. But he still does.

“Welp, you can stay out here if you want, but I might be a while,” Eren finally murmurs, scratching his right eyebrow with his thumb and praying that he doesn't sound as tired as he suddenly feels. It's times like these that he wishes more than anything that his heart wasn't so exuberant, that emotions didn't palpitate so brilliantly within him and bled out so candidly the way they do. He should be more careful. But he is kneaded and tender and he’s not like Mikasa. He doesn't know how not to show, how not to feel everything all at once. 

He realizes he’s still talking.

“Everyone's shit-faced so they'll probably give me a hard time for leaving.” His hand's already halfway to curling around the doorknob again when he hears her:

“Who's there? At the party?”

Eren's quiet for a moment, absorbing what she's just said. There's a hint of possibility, a tinge of promise in her voice. Afraid to spook it away, his tone is gentle and inviting. “Just a couple of people. You can come meet 'em if you want. Unless you've got your own friends to go back to, then I'll try to be quick—”

“That sounds great.”

He turns to gape at her. “Really?!”

“Yes!” and she'd be ashamed of how excited she just sounded if it wasn't for the fact that his own voice is just as tight as hers. “I'd love to meet them,” she coos, the words mingling in the wind around him and blowing that strand of hair that sticks to his parted lips. “Your friends.”

He can feel the smile ripping his mouth apart, stretching his demeanor terribly thin. He clears his throat, making a show of being a lot less ecstatic than what he is and shrugging, “Alright. Well, let's go before my ass freezes shut.”

Mikasa wrinkles her nose. It's pink, still. “That's disgusting.”

“I'm starting to feel it.”

“Eren, gross,” she giggles, and he grins because God, how he loves her laugh. He feels his chest expanding, making room for the burgeoning swell of elation in his heart.

“Come on, come on, come on,” he urges, shivering from the cold. Mikasa's heels knock on the steps and she makes her way up as quickly as she can manage without tripping. And when she stands beside him, when she's close enough for them to share their breaths, Eren opens the door leading to his future with his past standing by his side, bowing slightly and stepping out of her way to grin, “Your highness.”

Mikasa smiles brightly at his invitation, tipping her head down with a curtsy in thanks. And if only he could record that very quirk of her lips and his own reflection in her eyes and how that stray lock of hair strokes her jawbone and engrave it all into his mind so that someday in the future he might recall the exact moment in which he deemed himself the luckiest man. It's a blessing that the stars arrange the way they do, that fate or destiny or whatever people like to blame life's happenings on has brought them together again. And he doesn't question. Only thanks. He offers his gratitude to the sky and moon and everything else that carries the godly whisper of creation and—

“Why, thank you, peasant. You are most kind.”

“Okay, you know what?”

She shrieks when he threatens to slam the door shut in her face.

**—o—**

A torrent of drunken shouts floods them the second Eren opens the door.

“Ay, Eren's back!”

“Ay!”

“AYYYY!!!”

“AYYYYYYY!!!”

“Eren, you fucking shit lord I missed your ugly face!”

Mikasa follows meekly behind him, eyes trained on his back, the little hairs too short for his messy little bun and drape down the nape of his neck. She could count them if she wanted to, add them to her list of things she's finding different in him tonight. But the sudden anxiety of facing so many people, so many drunken, boisterous people all at once slaps her thoughts away.

“Guys, chill,” Eren drones, and a mere second after he has spoken, another deluge of greetings comes galloping their way.

“Ay! The Jaeger-nator!!”

_“La cucaracha machata!”_

“That makes zero sense, my dude.”

“My papaya fucker!”

“AYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!”

“Ayyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!”

“God.” Eren huffs, but he's smiling. He steps aside to allow Mikasa to come forward, sensing her hesitation the moment their eyes meet. His gaze is reassuring; it pulls her forth.

There's more drunken banter that they ignore because suddenly, Hitch materializes beside them with a Red Bull in her hands. Her perfume is something strong and flowery. Eren seems to smell it too, for his head turns in sync with Mikasa's to peer at the woman closing in from their right.

Her eyes are slow and steady, clinging to the floor before rolling up to them—and it's as if Mikasa doesn't even exist. She looks right through her and to the man standing by her side.

“Eren,” she chippers, a catty smile humoring her peachy lips. Standing this close to them, with her hair hanging down in wispy coils at the ends and her irises glinting all soft and hazel, Mikasa can see that she's a lot prettier than what she'd previously made her out to be. The clothes she wears tonight seem to be made of liquid and drip around her feline curves: jeans so tight they've been painted on her, a plain black tank top clinging to her torso and rucking up at her hips to expose the skin below her navel and crease around her narrow waist. A dainty necklace circumscribes her neck, and there's no hickeys there tonight—at least, none that Mikasa can see—but the faint bruise that peeks out at the top of her right breast is enough to raise some eyebrows. 

_Did Eren do that?_

When she speaks again, her voice is as brazen as Mikasa remembers it to be, purring rather than talking. Words vibrate on her tongue almost sweetly, but with a tinge of venom dappled here and there. “What the hell took you so— Oh.” Finally, she notices her.

The whole damn apartment does, in fact.

“Damn,” someone breathes. The entire place goes silent, save for the music that plays in the background and the sound effects coming from the TV. All heads turn Mikasa's way, and she feels like crawling into her skin to shield herself from their staring. Nobody says anything for what feels like a horrendously long time—even Eren goes quiet, his attention pinned solely unto to her. It's only when Hitch quirks one of her neatly groomed eyebrows and somebody coughs and the silence shatters.

“Well, well. Look who's here,” Hitch mewls suddenly, her fiery gaze scrutinizing her, and Mikasa can't help but feel like a tiny animal trapped under her paw, dwindled to a feeble, writhing critter squirming above the open, fanged maw of a lion. Hitch is, by all means, a very intimidating creature. Her eyes, although sleepy and a little stoned, are intense and self-assured, such a contrast to Mikasa. Her beauty and severity makes her the type of person that is even scarier up close. Enthralling, maybe, but still pretty damn scary. And then she says, almost carols, “Did you find her standing outside your door again, Eren?”

He fixes her with a rather blatant glare, choosing to ignore her comment and introduce them.

“Mikasa, Hitch. Hitch, Mikasa.”

“Oh, I remember her,” the cat-like smile purrs, but not kindly. Her eyes flit over every physical aspect of Mikasa, sizing her up.

“Nice to meet you,” she says, extending a hand out in greeting. Hitch just stares at it for a moment, tracing the length of her fingers and the rock on her engagement ring before smirking up at Eren, telling him something through her eyes that he seems to catch by the way his jawbone throbs with annoyance.

“Of course,” is all she answers with, and she's about to open her mouth to say more when a tall, tanned brunette appears behind her and smacks her ass with a sharp _thwap_. Hitch jumps, exclaiming in surprise, glowering at the woman as she throws an arm around her shoulders and smiles at Mikasa through a sip of her Heineken beer.

“Don't mind her,” the woman tells her, swaying forth a bit. Freckles dot her cheeks and nose through the pink flush of intoxication. She, too, is beautiful, but in a way that differs greatly from Hitch. “She's just sour because you're prettier than her.”

“Go choke on a dick.”

“No, thanks. Lesbian, remember?” She points a finger at Hitch's eye-rolling, leaning in even more to whisper, “She's an angry drunk.”

“So are you,” Eren scoffs, which earns him a punch on the shoulder.

“Hey, fuck you, Jaeger!” the angry drunk wails, slurring her words a bit. “So! Are you going to introduce us or am I gonna have to do it myself?”

The sigh that leaves Eren's mouth is short. He flits a hand between them, sweeping it back and forth with each exchange of names. “Ymir, this is Mikasa. Mikasa, Ymir.”

“Nice to meet you,” Mikasa smiles, extending her hand out again. This time, the gesture is reciprocated when Ymir takes it in her own, and her grip is callused and strong. She has the hands of someone who's fought hard in life, kind of like Eren’s.

“The pleasure's mine, sugar tits,” Ymir smirks, and Eren doesn't bother to stifle his pained groan. Before Mikasa's eyes can fully widen at her choice of words, Hitch slaps the back of her hand on Ymir's chest—missing her boob by mere centimeters.

“Alright, freckles. Help me pour these drinks.”

And they disappear.

In a somewhat stunned silence, Eren and Mikasa watch as the girls make their way into the kitchen. “Sugar tits?” Mikasa whispers. Eren literally face-palms.

“God, I'm sorry,” he grimaces, rubbing his hand down the side of his face to the back of his neck. “Ymir's a little… friendly when she's drunk. She's not like this when she's sober, though, I promise. Complete opposite, really.”

“Is everyone drunk in here?” she asks quietly, blowing a strand of hair off her face.

“Looks like it,” Eren smiles, reveling in the cute, pert shape of her mouth as she puffs to blow on the strand again, having failed the first time. With a gossamer hand at Mikasa's back, he guides her further into the apartment, careful not to touch her for longer than a breath. He sees her eyes scanning her surroundings, gauging what they see.

Hitch's apartment is slightly bigger than Eren's, but this may as well be due to the fact that hers is not as cluttered and lined with unnecessary junk. The walls are soft and peachy, the curtains on the windows a pristine white color that matches most of the furnishing—even the damn Christmas tree at the corner of the room is white save for its pink and golden adornments. The mixing scents of perfume and candles fill the place. Where Eren's apartment had mismatched furniture and dust and piles among piles of books, Hitch's place has Christmas lights and polished floors and vacuumed carpets and—oh, look at that, she's got a cat.

“Ow!” Eren exclaims suddenly, starting when something hits him at the back of the head. He turns to complain but Hitch's shout comes quicker.

“Hey! No ball throwing in my apartment, fuckwad!”

“Sorry, dude,” a blonde male chuckles behind him, retrieving a foam football from the floor. “I swear I wasn't aiming at you.” Eren gives him a look, but if he notices it, he shows no sign. Straightening up, the stranger nods his head at Mikasa, his golden eyes burning into her with an exaggerated squint. She can't tell if he's just too drunk, but his ginormous frame makes her balk suddenly. Seriously, the guy is huge. Even Eren looks small beside him. If he were to suddenly come toppling their way, he'd surely crush them.

He claps a heavy hand on Eren's shoulder, making him flinch. “Who's this?” he asks him, still staring at her.

The flippity hand motion thing again and, “Mikasa, Reiner. Reiner, Mikasa.”

“Nice to meet—” She's cut short when Reiner snatches her outstretched hand and kisses it suddenly, causing both hers and Eren's eyes to flare wide. He moans loudly against her skin, which makes heat rise to her cheeks and Eren slaps a hand over his face again.

“Mmm, your hand's soft,” he mumbles, inhaling deeply. His nostrils flare intensely and she feels his breath. “And smells _so_ good, wow.”

Eren hides his face behind his hands, sighing, “Jesus.”

“Thank you,” she manages, blinking at the hulk of a man. He winks an eye at her and goes away, much to Eren's satisfaction. Before she can comment on what just occurred, he points a finger to the rest of the people in the room and says their names loud enough for them to hear and greet her.

“That tall guy over there is Bertholdt.”

“Heyo.”

“Mina.”

“Hiya!”

“Marlowe.”

“Hello.”

“Thomas.”

“Hi . ”

“Rico.”

“‘Sup.”

“And that small girl you see over there—” he's interrupted by Mikasa's sudden gasp.

“Is that her?” she beams brightly, jumping slightly on her heels. Eren frowns at her, his mouth still open from where he'd failed to finish his words.

“Um. What?”

“You know...” Mikasa breathes, honeyed words pouring from her mouth sweetly. Eren frowns even deeper at the way her eyes start to glow. “Her?” She cups the side of her mouth as if she were telling him a secret. “Short? Blonde hair? Blue eyes?”

He raises a brow, the cogs in his brain whirring. “Uh...” But he has no idea what she's talking about. Her who? Who's short and blonde and has— “Oh! No, no. Annie's not here right now.”

He's surprised to see Mikasa's face fall disappointingly.

“Poop. What a shame.”

“Anyway,” he says slowly, clearing his throat. “That's Historia, but everyone calls her Christa because—”

“It's her hooker name!”

Whoever shouted that doesn’t faze the girl in the slightest. She kneels up from her place on the large sofa, holding out a hand in greeting and smiling so widely Mikasa feels a little bereft of air. The girl is stunning. Like, cover-of-a-fashion-magazine stunning. Her eyes are large and blue and her blonde hair falls just past her shoulders, half of it pinned back in neat little braids. She looks like a miniature Disney princess. Mikasa wouldn't be surprised if birds started popping out of the furniture to dance around her whilst she randomly burst into song.

“Nice to meet you, Mikasa,” she says, with an angelic voice to match her ethereal presence. “On behalf of all of us here, I apologize for anything inappropriate you may hear tonight.” She smiles widely at Eren, who smiles back. Dark eyes flit between them for a moment, studying the mutual respect they seem to share. She's about to reply when the girl gasps suddenly, leaning forward to peer down Mikasa's legs. “Wow, I love your heels! Prada?”

“Thank you. Ah, Gucci?”

“Aw. So close.”

“Wow, Eren,” Rico says, looking at the three of them over the rim of her glasses. “Look at you. So you do talk to pretty girls after all.”

“Please ignore every single person in this room while I go get my coat,” he tells Mikasa with a sigh. She almost feels bad for smiling, because she's slightly enjoying all the teasing he's receiving from his friends. It's funny to see Eren grow exasperated from all their playful jabbing. He taps his hand on the small blonde's shoulder as if telling her to keep an eye on their new guest. “I'll be right back.”

And then suddenly Mikasa wants to insist, to beg him not to go. _Take me with you. Don't leave me alone._ But he goes and she's left behind to fend for herself in this apartment full of people she's not acquainted with, and she tenses uncomfortably even though the lyrical voice beside her is welcoming again.

“So how do you two know each other?” Historia (or Christa?) queries when they're alone.

“We're childhood friends,” Mikasa settles, which is true enough.

“Oh, really?” Historia frowns. “Wow, he's never mentioned you.”

Mikasa's surprised to find herself slightly offended by this. Really? Eren's never mentioned her? Despite the gigantic chunk of history they share? But then again, it's not like she has any right to feel this way. What they claim in each other's lives isn't exactly the easiest thing to talk about—and by all means, it's not like she's ever really told anyone about him. Not even Jean knows about Eren. Not even Jean knows…

Historia must've seen something in her expression, for she quickly follows up her previous comment with, “I mean, he never really talks much about his past, though, so don't take it personally. He just kinda brushes it off and says he'll tell us someday when we jab. Never has.”

“That's understandable.” Mikasa pulls Jean's coat tighter around her body. It's a few more seconds before she realizes Historia is still talking.

“…and he's always lost in those books of his, so it's a miracle if we even get to see him at all these days. He sort of just disappears into that world of his and doesn't come back out for weeks at a time. Months even.”

Mikasa frowns, blowing the strand of hair off her face after it falls over her eyes again. “Lost in his books?” she asks, trying not to sound as genuinely surprised as she feels. Historia's grin to that is mesmerizing.

“Oh, yeah. That's all he does, you know. Read.”

“Really?”

“You sound surprised.”

“Well, it's just… He hated reading when we were younger.”

“What? No way!”

“Yeah,” Mikasa smiles softly, recalling little Eren with his crazy hair and lively personality and the dirty soccer ball he always carried around. “He detested reading. Especially after screwing up his vision in that one fight back in high school. Reading glasses just made everything even worse.”

“A fight?” Historia squeaks, her ocean blue eyes enlarging. “Eren needs reading glasses because of a _fight?”_

“Mhm.”

“You see?” she groans, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “He never tells us this stuff. I just thought he's always had crappy vision!”

“Nope. Not him.”

“Dang” the blonde whispers to herself, snapping her fingers. “Good to know.”

Despite how cute Historia is and how welcome she makes her feel, Mikasa sighs sadly. Without Eren beside her, she feels horribly out of place. But, to be frank, it's not nearly as bad as being at that other party with Jean. At least here, the only things making her feel alienated are her obviously contrasting attire to the rest of the people's clothes. That, and Hitch's blatant staring.

For a moment, Mikasa wonders if Hitch just doesn't like her. She hasn't really given her any reason not to, but she's dealt with people long enough to know that they don't always require one for their scorn. But does she dislike her? And if she does, why does Mikasa feel that this would sadden her? She genuinely wants Hitch to approve of her. But why? Because she knows what she is to Eren? Because Hitch liking her may be the equivalent of everybody else accepting her too?

Her thoughts are cut short by Ymir's sudden screaming.

“Babe!” It seems to be directed at Historia, who jumps and holds a hand to her chest. “Watch me make a jäger bomb for the Jaeger Bomb!”

“I'm not drinking right now!” Eren calls from somewhere in the apartment. Mikasa's ears perk up at the sound of his voice.

“What?!” Ymir cries, sagging her shoulders. “Why?”

Eren goes out of one room to enter another. Before going into what looks like Hitch's bedroom, he pauses at the door and says, “I have to uh… go somewhere.”

“Where?!”

He vanishes.

“Somewhere!”

Ymir's eyes twitch, and she slams her fists on the counter top, hollering, “You fucking elf, how could you leave me like this?!”

“Ymir, lower your voice,” Hitch says, smacking her arm. “The whole damn city can hear you.”

“Like I said,” Historia sighs sadly. “I apologize on behalf of everyone in this room. I promise we're all a lot more amiable when we're sober. Except, well, maybe Hitch.”

“That's okay.”

And then there's an awkward silence. It expands, and expands, and expands, making Mikasa fidget uncomfortably. She's never really been good with conversation. 

“So how did…” she starts, clearing her throat when her voice catches, “you two… meet?”

Historia's eyes glimmer happily. “You mean, how did Eren and I meet?” She smiles when Mikasa nods. “Well, he trains with my girlfriend, Ymir, the loud one over there. I met him through her a few years back. They do all sorts of martial arts stuff that I know hoot about. He works there, too, at this gigantic gym place or something. Teaches little kids.”

“Oh?”

“Yup! He's so sweet to them, it's the cutest thing ever. You should see how they all follow him around and call him Sensei. Most of the people here know him from that place, I think. Others, he met at his other job, probably. Like Rico. I think she's like his boss or something, I dunno.”

“What's his other job?”

“Dang, he hasn't told you all this? He works in the space department at a museum. Something to do with the stars.”

Mikasa feels a little flutter in her chest, the silent wing beats of a butterfly.

“The stars?” She can hear how breathless she is in her own voice. “Really?”

“Mhm. He's into all that stuff. Keeps his mind busy, I guess.”

Eren and the stars, huh. It makes sense, but at the same time it doesn't. Stars were always Armin's thing growing up. Eren would always moan and protest whenever he'd force them to lay down on their backyards to stargaze, and he always did it at sleepovers because Eren and Mikasa's houses were the closest to the sky, which really only meant that they were propped up on a hill. And how nice those memories are to recall. She can almost envision Armin lying beside her, ripping grass from soil and pointing out this constellation and that, eyes twinkling as he went on and on. Eventually, Eren's moans ceased and he listened in on all the information, even matching his own enthusiasm at one point. And now he works in the space department at a museum. Armin would bust a gut laughing if he knew—that, or cry his eyes out. Both, probably. Yeah, knowing Armin, he'd probably do both.

Historia starts talking again.

“So are you staying here tonight, or…?”

“Oh, no. I'm going back to my own party. Eren's walking me there.”

“He is?”

“Yeah. I went for a walk and got lost and then we sort of ran into each other, so…”

“Ah, so he's helping you find your way back.”

“Mhm.”

“Sounds like him.”

“I'm surprised he hasn't tried to nail you yet,” Ymir murmurs when she appears beside them, leaning on the sofa beside a flustered Historia, who's clearly perturbed by her girlfriend’s shirtless state.

She's got a sports bra on and muscles that make Mikasa sigh with envy. Once upon a time, her own body had looked that good: arms lean and strong, abs that could cut a man. But now…. Well, now she's all bones and skin and shrunken boobs and a whole lotta sadness. Ymir's tanned skin emits a healthy glow that is as bright as the redness that boils in the small girl's pallid cheeks as she wails, “Ymir!”

“What? It's true.”

“Don't pay attention to her,” Historia whispers to Mikasa, leaning close to her—and she smells sweet, like cotton candy. “Eren's a good man.”

Ymir, with her crazy hair that's even crazier than Eren's and her glorious abs and her freckled face barks out a laugh. “When he's not sticking his dick inside anything with boobs,” she chortles, swigging back some more of her beer.

“Lovely,” Mikasa mutters, casting her gaze to the side. Historia squeezes Ymir's bicep disapprovingly, but Mikasa thinks she sees her flex it in the small girl's grasp. 

“Stop it,” the Disney princess scolds. “Also, where is your shirt?”

Taking another sip of her beer (and flexing again, dear Jesus), Ymir runs a hand through her disheveled hair and shrugs. “I got hot.”

“Hitch!” the one who sticks his dick inside anything with boobs calls out from inside her bedroom.

Hitch looks up from her drinks, sniffling. “What?”

“Where's my coat?!”

“In the closet, dumbass.”

“THE WHAT!!!”

“THE CLOSET!!!”

“Which one?!”

“The walk-in one.”

“The _WHAT!!?_ ”

“ _EREN!!!!!_ ”

The place goes quieter for a second, until a muffled thud echoes through the floor and then a loud, cracking squawk of, “I can't find it!” echoes even louder.

Hitch groans and pinches the bridge of her nose, sighing so heavily her chest sinks. “Oh, my fucking— I'm gonna hit him.”

“I'll go help,” says Marlowe, rising to his feet.

“Help me!” Eren cries. There's more thuds. Hitch cups her hands on either side of her mouth to shout at him.

“Marlowe's on his way!”

“Huh?!”

“MARLOWE!! IS ON!! HIS WAY!!”

“WHAT!?!”

“ _SHUT UP!!!!!_ ”

Historia giggles loudly, throwing her head back before covering her mouth. Even Ymir seems amused, a grin splitting her lips open.

“God. Those two are always screaming at each other,” Historia twitters, shaking her head. “They're both so hot-headed. It's so funny.”

Mikasa can't help a small laugh of her own. “They seem close,” she says, fitting her hands into Jean's coat's pockets. She finds a little candy wrapper inside. She thinks of him.

Historia's voice brings her back.

“They fight like a married couple, but they've always got each other's backs.”

“Yeah, well, Eren fights with, like, everyone, ” Ymir remarks. Historia rolls her eyes at her.

“That's not true. He's always a sweetie to me.”

At that, Ymir grabs hold of her small chin and grips it firmly so that the girl can't move when she leans in to smooch her hard on the lips and coo, “That's because you're the cutest thing in the world, baby.”

“Bleugh,” Mina grimaces nearby, shielding her eyes from their public show of affection. Mikasa smiles softly. She likes those two. They're unlike anyone she's met before and the fact that they're both so different, and a couple, and Eren's friends, makes Mikasa's chest feel full. She's only just met them but they've pulled more smiles out of her than all of Jean's friends ever have combined.

“So if you're childhood friends, how come we're only meeting you now?” Historia asks her after wiping her mouth on her shirtsleeve. Her attitude towards Ymir is dismissive, but Mikasa notices the blush that darkens her cheeks.

“I just moved here recently.”

“Oh, wow. What compelled you to do that?”

“My fiancé.”

“Ooh!”

“Damn.”

“So let's see it.”

“See what?”

“The ring, silly!”

“Oh.”

So she lets them see it. And their eyes practically pop out of their heads.

“Oh my—” Historia gasps softly, holding a hand to her cheek. “Holy—”

“What the fuck?” Ymir frowns, blinking profusely. “Are you engaged to the duke of England?”

Mikasa sighs. “Hardly.”

“That thing must've cost your fiancé an arm and a leg!”

“I'm~telling~you,” Ymir sings under her breath, “Eren's gonna try to tap that.”

This annoys Historia greatly. “She's engaged, Ymir Elizabeth.”

“That hasn't stopped him before,” she snorts. Historia pinches her freckled shoulder.

“Can you not? Please?”

“It's not like that,” says Mikasa, looking around. Hitch isn't staring at her anymore, rather occupied with mixing drinks and munching on some cookies.

“Yeah. So show some respect, will you?”

“Hey, yo, Mufasa. You want a shot?”

It takes thirty whole seconds before Mikasa realizes they're talking to her.

**—o—**

Mikasa: “Um, it's Mikasa. And no, thanks. I don't drink.”

Ymir: “Boo.”

Mina: “How old are you?”

Mikasa: “Twenty-five.”

Thomas: “So you're old enough to drink. Why don't you do it?”

Mikasa: “Never really appealed to me, I suppose.”

Ymir: “Wow. You talk so proper. Good shit.”

Historia: “Ugh. Ymir.”

Rico: “And what are you?”

Mikasa: “I'm sorry?”

Rico: “Your ethnicity. You look exotic.”

Mikasa: “Oh. I'm half Japanese.”

Thomas: “Oh, damn. _Konnichiwa_.”

Ymir: “Bro… That’s fucked up.”

Thomas: “What is?” 

Ymir: “You you can’t just say _Konni_ _—_ ”

Reiner, still on the floor: “And the other half?”

Bertholdt, the tall one over there: “Reiner, you can't just ask people what their other half is.”

Reiner: “Why not?”

Historia: “It's rude.”

Reiner: “How in the fuck?”

Ymir: “Listen, blondie pecks. Fuck you.”

Reiner: “What did I do!?”

Hitch: “Ymir. I need you.”

Ymir, going to where she's needed: “Don't you always?”

Hitch: “Chrissy, calm your girlfriend, please.”

Historia: “I've been trying to!”

Mina: “Where's Eren?”

Thomas: “Fucking Marlowe, probably.”

Ymir: “Okay, not everyone is a flaming homo like you, Tom.”

Thomas: “Ha! Says the angry lesbian.”

Ymir, clearly quite angry: “I AM NOT ANGRY!”

Hitch: “Ymir. My eardrums.”

Ymir: “Hey! Mufasa! Go check on papaya fucker!”

Mikasa: “Who?”

Historia: “It's a nickname of Eren's. Please don't ask why.”

Mina: “He has a fruit fetish.”

Mikasa: “He what? ”

Bertholdt: “Oh, no.”

Rico: “Here we go.”

Mina: “A fruit fetish!”

Thomas: “Apples, pears, bananas. You name it. He'll fuck it all.”

Historia: “Don't listen to them. That's not true.”

Mina: “Papayas are his favorite!”

Ymir: “Hole in the papaya!”

Everyone, except Mikasa and Historia: “Hole in the papaya!”

Eren: “I hate every single one of you.”

**—o—**

Eren's back.

Mikasa almost wants to collapse into his arms and let him whisk her away from everyone, gasping at the relief of having him beside her again. He smells so good, and looks so nice with his coat on and his hair in that little bun and his shaven face and she missed him the whole ten minutes he was gone and she's so ready to get out of here, as is he, but before making their leave, he paws at his coat and jean pockets and curses. “Shit, wait. Hitch.”

She looks up at him, her expression flat. “What.”

“My keys.” His keys are removed from one of her pockets and hurled across the room and into Eren's hands. “Thanks. Okay, everyone, say goodbye to Mikasa.”

“Bye!”

“Bye!”

“ _Adios,_ sugar tits!”

“Ymir, Jesus Christ.”

“Oh please, do come back, Mia,” Hitch smiles, perching her chin atop the palm of her hand. Eren trots over to steal a doughnut from the Dunkin Donuts box that sits on the counter top she’s leaning over, stuffing his face with a glazed one before correcting her—with his mouth full, no less.

“Her name's Mikasa. _Mi-ka-sa_.”

Hitch rolls her eyes at that. “Whoop-tee-doo.”

Eren motions to the box of donuts in offering. Mikasa shakes her head, declining politely, and he literally scarfs the remainder of his snack in two bites.

“Yeah, Eren,” someone says loudly, but Mikasa doesn't see who. “Bring her more often, she's hot!”

“Okay, we're out of here,” he huffs, sucking the glaze off of the tips of his fingers.

Mikasa waves a shy hand at everyone. “Goodbye. It was nice meeting you all.”

The room bursts with a chorus of “Bye, Mikasa!” and a single _Mufasa_ is thrown in there too, followed by cackling laughter.

“Don't take too long, titan dick!” Reiner shouts to Eren. “You've still got presents to open!”

He leads Mikasa to the door, throwing over his shoulder: “I'll be quick!”

“Titan what?” she asks him quietly, wondering if the nickname is directed at his personality or his… well… 

“It's an inside joke” he sighs, still chewing. He waits until he's done eating to say, “Please ignore my friends, they're all insane.”

“Historia seems nice.”

“Yeah, well, she's about as normal as it gets.”

The front door swings open and, lo and behold, a skinny brunette with a high ponytail and a green, frilly dress in a white coat Mikasa's seen barely an hour before materializes in front of them. The woman jumps, nearly dropping the foam take-out container in her hands.

“Oh!” she gasps. “Lord, I was just about to knock.”

“Sash!” Eren smiles, his face brightening up whilst Mikasa's slowly darkens. “I was waiting for you!”

Sasha sighs, glancing down at her feet. They’re stuffed into wedges she wobbles in, even while standing. “Well, I'm here. Late, but I'm here. I brought food from the party and— Oh, my God.”

Oh my God indeed.

Her light brown eyes go wide, features as rigid as the posture both her and Mikasa have simultaneously acquired. Her usually chirpy voice is lost in a breath and—

“Mikasa?”

“Sasha.”

Eren frowns, puzzled. “You two know each other?”

“Uh…” Sasha's the one to say. “Yeah. I'm…” She closes her eyes, voice wavering. Mikasa would've said something. She would've said something if it wasn't for the fact that what quickly followed was the brash, immobilizing truth.

“I'm close friends with her fiancé.”

Eren's mouth falls open. “Oh shit,” he breathes. Mikasa's heart seems to have forgotten how to beat properly. Her mouth works at speaking but no words come out. Her muscles work at moving but she remains still. Her mind whirls and all she can imagine is the look on Jean's face once Sasha tells him where she's found her. And she regrets everything. She regrets ever showing up. She regrets meeting Eren's friends and stumbling into Sasha and leaving her fiancé behind. But most of all, she regrets adhering to the luring whispers of her heart, because look at where it’s gotten her.

Mikasa swallows thickly.

Sasha sinks her gaze away.

Eren stands frozen in the midst of it all.

And the only thing either of them can think is: _Oh shit indeed._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's so crazy to read this chapter again and see the kind of characters that were used for the scene in hitch's apartment. at the time this was first written, i think it was still so early on in the series that not a lot of characters were introduced, nor did they have the kind of camaraderie that would've warranted them being present in Eren's circle of friends.
> 
> plus. i love that reiner is like, actually outgoing and strong here. have y'all seen the way he is now in the manga?
> 
> I DIGRESS! i'd like to end by giving a huge shout out to my lovely beta for this chapter, Ligana. i haven't had a beta in a very long time, let alone for a chapter i am editing, so i am very grateful for their suggestions and contributions to this chapter.
> 
> see you next week!


	10. Every Ugly Clam Has its Pearl

As a child, Eren Jaeger had a peculiar anatomy.

His bones were made of steel, and thus they rarely ever broke or sprained despite the strain he constantly imposed on his body. They held him up, his skeleton the solid foundation that kept him going, moving—despite everything, despite mental and physical fatigue, always moving. Moving. He never stopped moving.

His heart was a bomb, and it ticked and tocked and sometimes, out of nowhere, it exploded. It wasn't something he really knew how to control, for in his being he felt emotions so intensely that they tended to overwhelm him, bursting if not blocked soon enough. Sometimes, the anger was so severe that it crept up his small hands and leaked through his knuckles. And before he knew it, they'd met the cheek of one of his classmates, or the cold stiffness of a wall; and what once were the fragile hands of a child became bleeding weapons that oozed onto the floor.

His muscles were springs, cogs, all sorts of fleshy machinery. They whirred and churned and coughed out exhaust, spurring him onward without motive or direction. From a young age, he was propelled into the harshness of the world, thrust forward without so much as an ounce of preparation. He simply had to deal. And move. And fight to keep on living.

As a child, Eren Jaeger felt, more often than not, like a machine.

And every day, he wound up his screws and functioned. When other kids his age were playing with their toys and seeing the world from their fathers' shoulders, Eren had to see it through the lenses of his mother's foggy eyes, reflected in shadowy glimpses of fleeting possibility. Sickness had the tendency to eat away at everything he loved. His best friend Armin was always sick. His dear mother was always sick. People were always sick and Eren hated it.

Mom had an illness whose name he could not pronounce. But it made her bones hurt, and her heart beat weird, and her muscles ache so bad that sometimes they cramped and kept her from moving. She too had a peculiar anatomy. Where Eren was made of indestructible features, Carla Jaeger was made of glass.

She spent her days in bed in a separate room his dad prepared for her to store all sorts of medical equipment. They connected to her wrists and made odd beeping noises that sometimes lulled Eren to sleep. Every single day after getting home from school, he sat beside his mother's bed and waited. Sometimes, he watched her sleep. Sometimes, he read her stories or did his homework by her side. Sometimes, he curled up beside her and took naps in her bed.

His mother hadn't always been this sick, but it sure felt that way. He was four when it first happened, when a random ambulance showed up at his house after she fell. Eren thought she'd just gotten a boo-boo that needed to be bandaged and kissed, but then months passed and she slept more and more and did less and less and he had to eat TV dinners and whatever his father cooked for him because she couldn't make the trip to the kitchen anymore. That made him sad, because his mom made the best spaghetti and now she rarely ever made it. It was all very confusing for him, and he couldn't understand why or how it all occurred. But eventually, Eren stopped asking questions.

It was the day that Mikasa had broken Sarah Hale's nose that he was taken to a mind doctor or, as his father called it, a "psychiatrist". They made him answer all sorts of silly questions, and jotted down some squiggly, cryptic notes that eventually concluded Eren suffered from something called Insomnia and requested that they test him for ADD or ADHD or ABCDEFG or something like that. They gave him medication for anxiety, and some other pills to make him sleep, and some other blue, funny looking pill that he wasn't sure was even given to him for. He felt tempted to ask if they had pills for big hearts that felt too much, for he surely suffered from that ailment. He didn't ask though. The question felt silly to voice aloud.

His father, Grisha, with his fancy-looking specs and long hair and doctorate in medicine, didn't make an effort to treat his own son, despite his ability to do so. It was a universal rule among doctors that one should never treat members of their own family. But honestly, that was just a whole lot of baloney to Eren. How could you _not_ treat your own family? Isn't that what doctors are there to do? Help sick people? Eren didn't think that he was sick, but his mom was sick and his dad never treated her and that made him angry. A lot of things made him angry. But that made him angrier than anything else in the entire world because it was the one thing Eren hated more than anything: It was unfair. And he could never bring himself to understand that.

Once they made it back home, Eren went straight to his mother's room and closed the door behind him, not even bothering to take off his shoes before climbing onto her bed. The smell of antiseptic tickled his nose, but soon he found the familiar scent of his mother tingeing the sheets he pulled up over himself.

In a matter of minutes, he was out. Funny that the doctors thought he needed sleeping medicine. All Eren really needed was his mom.

**—o—**

"Don't tell your mother I said this, but I am very proud of you, Mikasa."

"Thanks, Papa."

"No, listen to me. I mean it. I know your mother was hard on you for not being honest with her, but we're not always going to be there to protect you, so you gotta know how to protect yourself."

Her father took a serious lick of his ice cream and grumbled something under his breath, something Mikasa couldn't hear over the noise of chocolate sprinkles breaking between her teeth.

"And if you ask me," he huffed, fiddling with his wristwatch, still in his work clothes. "I think you should've broken more than just her nose, kiddo. You should've broken her entire face, taught that little racist brat a lesson."

Mikasa snorted softly, taking a lick of her own ice cream cone. "If Mama heard you right now, she wouldn't be happy, Papa."

"I know." He pinched her cheek and wiped a fleck of chocolate ice cream from the corner of her mouth with his finger. "That's why you won't tell her anything. Keep it between us, okay?"

The girl nodded. "Okay."

They sat outside a small ice cream parlor near their home, watching the sun paint the bellies of clouds with all sorts of wild, flaming colors. The day was ending. Ice cream season would be ending soon too, much to Mikasa's sadness.

Papa had taken her for a ride after leaving the principal's office; Mama had gone straight home to start dinner and calm herself. She was furious and it was frightening. Furious that the bullying had gotten so out of hand. Furious that Mikasa hadn't been truthful to her. Furious that the school authorities never did anything to prevent all the abuse. She'd cursed them all out in Japanese, and planted a stern eye on Mikasa and said that "We will talk about this later." Papa had intervened in an attempt to keep the peace, as he always did. When Mama was angry, she was a fearsome thing to behold.

"So, about this Jaeger kid," her father said out of nowhere. Mikasa's feet dangled in the air as they sat on a bench, her eyes going wide at the mention of Eren. She hadn't told anyone of how he had egged her on, told her to fight back and strike those that abused her. But, apparently, the principal knew about his role. Fortunately, though, Eren was to suffer no consequences for his part in the entire thing; only Sarah and Mikasa were to pay. Sarah for being a racist little turd, Mikasa for crumpling her nose into pieces. 

"The principal said his mother's ill. Did you know that?"

Somehow, in her heart, she already did. But to hear it pronounced and confirm her speculations was another thing. In a way, Mikasa wasn't at all perplexed. Just devastated. Eren had that sort of honesty that reflected on the outside. He was an open book, and the stories of his life were all written on his skin for the world to see. And somewhere along the lines, Mikasa had caught up on the hints that indicated he had a sick mother. And she'd decided that perhaps it was only her imagination. And now she saw that it was not.

Sometimes, being adept at reading people wasn't a skill she was proud of.

"No," and she wished that her father would laugh and slap his knee and say that he was joking, say that Eren's mother was completely fine and healthy and that there's nothing wrong with her. But the laugh, the joke, the knee slapping… they never came.

"She's the one that's been making you lunches, yeah?"

"Yes."

He took a deep breath, staring at the ice cream cone in his hand. "We gotta find a way to thank her."

"That's why I made her that flower crown," she explained, gazing at her bruised knuckles. "I wanted her to wear it."

"Make her another one. We'll find a way to give it to her." Her father was silent for a long time. Mikasa was nearly done with her cone when he turned to her and said, "Is he the prince?"

She swallowed, blinking at him. "Huh?"

"Eren. Is he your prince? The one you and your mother use nicknames for around me so that I won't find out?" Mikasa's silence told him all he needed to know. Papa cocked his head back with a smile. "Ah, he is, then."

"Don't tell Mama that it's him," she begged him, her tummy in knots. At the mention of the boy and her nickname for him, she found it hard to eat. "I want to keep his identity a mystery."

"I won't, baby. But tell me, you got a crush on him or something?"

"Papa, I'm nine!" she cried. Her father was laughing.

"So? I had crushes when I was your age."

''No, I don't have a crush on him."

"Then why are your cheeks all red?" He took her little pout between his fingers and squished it, making her grimace. "My little girl's got a crush!" he chuckled loudly, but then stared worriedly ahead. "Oh my God, no, wait. That's not a good thing."

Mikasa frowned, equally as worried, as if having a crush on someone were a disease she'd been afflicted with. "It's not?"

She was ready for her death sentence, but her father placed a hand on the top of her head and sighed. "Well, fathers are supposed to be mad about that sort of stuff." His eyes on her were almost sad, but then they squinted and he frowned and pouted and grumbled. "So here I am, mad."

Mikasa hopped on her feet and walked over to her father, giving him a sticky, chocolaty kiss on the cheek and pleading. "Don't be mad, Papa." Her father looked down at his hands, smirking.

"Too late. You're growing up too fast and I don't like it. I'm mad."

"I don't have a crush," she assured him. Papa threw an arm around her and pulled her close to his chest, almost getting chocolate ice cream all over his dress shirt.

"I'm so proud of you, Mikasa," he breathed into her hair, closing his eyes. "Even if you're grounded and this'll be the last ice cream cone you have for a while, I want you to know: I really am very proud of you."

When he let her go, Mikasa's eyes searched his for a moment. It almost seemed unreal to imagine all the things she'd done today. She'd brought a flower crown to school, cried, looked at Eren, punched a bully in the face and broken her nose, gotten suspended from school, gotten a glare from her mother and a low-five from her dad. Her heart felt numb under the weight of all sorts of different emotions.

"Now," Papa told her, checking the time on his wristwatch. "Hurry up and eat your ice cream—and get rid of all the evidence. Your mother can't know I took you out to celebrate your three-day suspension from school instead of giving you 'the chat'."

The girl smiled. "Yes, Papa."

**—o—**

He was awoken by a set of tender lips, the kiss they planted on his cheek light as a feather, a breath of love upon his skin. When his eyes slid open and blinked away the last vestiges of slumber, Eren peered up to find his mother's honey-colored eyes staring down at him.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," she told him, even though the sun was dwindling outside. "Sleep well?"

He moaned groggily and stretched his arms over his head, joints popping. It took him a while to realize that his shoes weren't on his feet anymore. His mother must've taken them off while he was sleeping. 

"Yup," he sighed, turning on his side to face her. Carla snorted gently, picking at his eye to clean out some eye booger. He squirmed. "Mommy, gross." But she ignored his complaints and told him to hold still.

"How was school today?" she asked after getting a tissue and insisting that he blow his nose, to which he complained as well but she didn't even bat an eye at.

"Same as always," Eren sniffled, closing his eyes as she ran a hand through his messy hair. He didn't see how she smiled at him.

"Get into any fights?"

"Nope. Not today."

"That's my boy."

The feeling of her nails scraping his scalp were slowly lulling him back to sleep, but then an image flashed into his mind and he saw flower petals dancing, a fist splitting through the air and the loud, sickening crack of bones breaking.

He opened his eyes.

"Mom." Her hand ceased its stroking, resting on his cheek. "You know that girl I told you about? The new girl?"

"The one we've been making lunches for?"

"Yeah. Well, she punched Sarah in the face today. I think she broke her nose."

"Did she really?" Carla asked. Eren giggled.

"Yeah. It was awesome, Mom. I loved it."

"Eren," she chided. The child untangled himself from the sheets and sat up on his knees, bright eyes boring into hers.

"Mom, it's true!" he exclaimed, bouncing slightly on the bed. "I wanted to cheer but that would've gotten me another detention so I stayed quiet."

"Why did she punch her?"

"Sarah was super extra mean to her today. Like, super duper extra mean, Ma. She deserved it."

Carla's sigh was weary. "Nobody deserves violence, Eren." But her son was adamant. He shook his head.

"Sarah Hale deserves it."

She gave him a look but all it did was make him laugh again and flash a happy, wicked grin. She noticed that one of his teeth was missing. Another baby tooth she wasn't there to see him lose.

Carla wondered just how much her son had to do with Mikasa breaking Sarah's nose.

But instead of asking, she voiced the second thing that had been stirring in her mind. "Your father told me that you're on meds now. Is this true?"

The boy's gaze drooped slightly, smile fading from his lips. "Yes."

"Where are they?"

He hopped off the bed and went to fetch his school bag. Three pharmaceutical bags were in his hand when he returned to her.

"I don't understand," Ma frowned as she read one of the labels, Eren plopping beside her on the bed. "Why are they giving you pills for anxiety?"

"I dunno," Eren shrugged, twiddling his thumbs on his chest. "I didn't even know they made pills for that. They may as well make pills for happiness and sadness and—wait, _do_ they make pills for sadness too?"

"Sort of, yeah."

"Oh, I need those."

"You do not," Carla told him sternly. He cringed at her tone. "Don't say that. I don't like that you're on medication."

Eren studied the crease between her brows for a moment before asking, "Am I sick, Mommy?"

This made her turn her head and scrutinize him.

She was silent for a bit, until a sigh filled her mouth and she set his medication on the bedside table. Laying down beside him, she threw an arm over her son's belly and whispered into his hair. "You're not sick, baby."

Eren closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in her scent. She smelled like sleep and morphine lollipops. "Then why do I need meds?" he asked her, cracking an eye open when she kissed the arch of his brow.

"I'm gonna have a talk with your father," was all his mother said. Eren craned his neck to get a better look of her.

"Are you gonna yell at him?"

"I never yell at him."

"Yeah, right."

"I'm just passionate at times, that's all. You know I love him very much."

"I know. That's why you're always kissing. Ew."

 _"Ew,"_ Carla mocked, pinching his nose. "Cooties." She said something about him no longer thinking that kisses are gross once he gets his first girlfriend, to which Eren guffawed.

"I'm never having a girlfriend. Girls are weird."

"Are you saying I'm weird?"

"You're not a girl. You're a mom."

"Thanks," she mumbled. Eren yawned, rolling on an elbow and holding his head up with one hand. His mom asked him, "What about Mikasa?"

"What about her?"

"What's she like? You almost never talk about her."

"I don't know. She's a little… different, Mom."

"How come?"

"I don't mean that she _looks_ different. I mean, yeah, she does but that's not what I mean. She's very quiet and her eyes are kinda big and sad and she has a squeaky voice but never uses it." And her mouth is small, her lips are always pink and when they're not pink they're red and they're thin save for her upper lip that kinda curves up at the top and her nose is small too and it's kinda funny how small it is because it has this impossible point that's like, huh? How even? How is it possible for it to be that tiny? Can she even breathe right? Does her head implode with every sneeze? And her lashes are super thick and long, like God had too many lashes left from creating other babies so he gave all the extra ones to her. Her skin is white like the snow, but her hair is black like oreos and she always has it up in a bun and she's unlike anything he's ever seen before. She kinda looks like a girl taken out of a storybook, one of those that Armin likes to read. "She's pretty," he said finally, which caused his mother to raise her brows.

"Is she?"

"Oh, yeah," he sniffled, wiping his nose with the edge of his wrist. "Very pretty. Makes me feel all sorts of weird."

"Like how weird?"

Eren took a long, deep breath, thinking. "Like…" a hand stroking his belly, "butterflies in my tummy weird."

"Oh, my," Carla beamed.

Eren frowned. "What?"

"You have a crush on her."

Disgust twisted his features. "Ew, that's gross."

"Why? Isn't she cute?"

"I don't have a crush, Mom."

"Your ears are red!"

He scrambled for a pillow, throwing it over the back of his head and pulling it on both sides so that it covered his ears. "No, they're not!" he shouted into the mattress. Carla snickered, jabbing her fingers into his ribs so that he squirmed.

"Then why do you get butterflies in your tummy, hmm? If you don't like her?"

Her son's voice was muffled into the bed. A tiny, high-pitched wail. "They're friendly butterflies! Like, the type that wanna be her friend. Not kiss her! That's gross!"

"Alright," she smirked, patting his little butt. "If you say so."

Slowly, Eren peeked his head out from under the pillow, and Carla found herself grinning at a pair of big green eyes. "Mom," he said suddenly, sitting back on his heels. His hair was a wreck. "I have an idea."

"Tell me."

"How about I give you my meds and you can have 'em instead of me."

"That's not how it works, sweetie." She smiled at his innocence, but her son furrowed his brows, not understanding.

"But why? Maybe you just need to try my medicine and you'll be cured." At that, the tenderness in her eyes fell, a mantle of gloom elevated. Eren studied his mother's expression, reaching out to place a hand on her arm. "Did I say something wrong, Mommy?"

"No, baby," she said, but he didn't believe her.

"You look sad."

"I'm tired, that's all."

"You're always tired."

Carla looked up to the ceiling and threw her hands up as if to say _such is life_. Sadness happens. Happiness happens. Illnesses happen. Such is life.

Eren's frown only grew deeper. Carla tapped his chin and whispered, "Come here," patting her chest, "I'm gonna tell you a story about a clam."

"Oh, no," he complained, but laid his head down on her chest anyway, his small body settling beside her lanky frame.

"Shh, listen." She wrapped her arms around him and buried her nose in his hair. It smelled of sweat. She smiled. "Once upon a time, there was an ugly clam, and this clam felt very different from all the others because it was so weird-looking on the outside. So, the other clams always made fun of it for being different, and that clam grew up believing that something was wrong with it."

"I don't like this story," Eren protested. Carla pinched the side of his thigh.

"Hush. Listen. But then, one day, divers came and harvested all the clams for food. They suffered the same fate, died as equals. But you wanna know what they found inside that really ugly clam that they didn't find in any other?"

He draped an arm around her waist, sighing. "What?"

"A pearl."

"A pearl?"

"Oh, yes. But not just any pearl. It was the single most beautiful pearl in the entire world." Carla took hold of his hand, passing her thumb over the small ridges of his knuckles. His fingers were so small compared to hers, but she knew that this wouldn't last long, for her child grew at an alarming rate. "You see,” she explained after a moment. "Clams that produce pearls are very rare. Mostly, pearls come from oysters. But this ugly clam that grew up its entire life believing that something was wrong with it held the world’s most beautiful treasure, and it had no idea how special it was until its very last day."

"But then why didn't somebody tell that clam that it was special?" Eren asked, curling his fingers around hers. "Maybe then it would've known and it wouldn't have died so sad."

"I agree. Maybe if the clam had known more love it would've understood that what others say about him wasn't all that important. But that isn't the point. The point is, Eren, you're that ugly clam."

"Gee, thanks," he muttered. Carla laughed.

"No, no, listen. I say that because, as you grow, you will find people that will try to make you feel unimportant, but you should never let that ruin what you hold inside." Her fingers found his chin and she lifted his face so that their eyes met. Her eyes were gold in the afternoon light, reflected in her son's own gaze in the form of tiny flecks. She pushed his bangs out of his face, and smiled tenderly at the baby-like pudginess of his cheeks when she cupped them in her hands. "Sometimes, you may feel like the ugly clam, but don't ever forget that inside of you there is something tremendously special. You can do anything. You can be anything." A light kiss on the tip of his nose for good measure. "You're beautiful, my son."

Eren was silent for a moment, staring at his mother's thinning hair.

"Mom?"

"Hmm?"

"If I'm the ugly clam, then you're my pearl."

Carla smiled so brightly that her cheeks hurt. Eren smiled with her. His cheeks hurt too.

And they laughed. Because suddenly the thought of Eren being a clam and his mother being a pearl seemed very funny.

"Now, it's your turn to tell me a story," she said after a while.

"I don't know any, though."

She reached out and pulled a book from under her pillow. "Read me one, then."

"But Ma," the child whined. "I _hate_ reading."

"Shhh," she breathed, sitting up on the bed. "I'll read with you."

A mighty sigh left his mouth. With a roll of his eyes, Eren crawled onto her lap. "Fine." He sat between her legs, his back pressed to her chest, her chin atop his head, and the book open in front of them. Carla held it, and it was Eren's job to turn the pages. Together, they read aloud.

At the back of his ribs, he could feel his mother's steady heartbeat. It beat fiercely. Intently. With the reverberating force of a sparrow's wings. The feeling of life on his back reminded him that he still had her. It was such a wonderful feeling, to be with her in this way. It felt very much like flying.

**—o—**

Mikasa couldn't sleep. Mama had grounded her for a week for lying to her, and because she was suspended from school, she had three whole days to lay about her house and do nothing. She watched Mama sew clothes and harvest flowers from their dying garden. Autumn was just around the corner and leaves fell from the tired trees. Flowers wilted with the days, as did Mama's stern frown until she was her old loving self again.

Mikasa didn't like that she was grounded, because it meant no chocolate or ballet for a week. But she _could_ eventually understand why her mother felt so wounded. It dawned on her that perhaps she'd caused more harm than good by keeping the truth from her parents. She heard Mama crying one night when she thought she'd been asleep, and hated herself for her naivete. Of course her mother was hurt greatly by the abuse that she'd been facing, it was one she'd had to deal with herself! No decent parent ever wishes the same cruelty that they’ve faced upon their child.

And then, one night, Mikasa started crying too. She didn't know why she wept. Perhaps it was out of boredom. Heck, with nothing to do for days anyone would be moved to tears. But she clutched Ningyo to her chest and sobbed. She thought that she'd been quiet, but then a soft creak indicated that her mother was at her door. Slowly, her lithe, warm body slipped under the covers and snuggled close to the girl. She wrapped her child in her arms and stroked her hair, asking no questions. The tears came and came without stopping. Mikasa cried herself to sleep.

The next morning, Mikasa realized why she'd been crying, and why sleep had been so hard to find those days. She felt guilty. Eren had been so kind to her, and to find out that he had a sick mother, and a difficult home life, tore her heart to shreds. If only she could help him somehow, return all the happiness he'd given her. A hundred flower crowns weren't enough to amend such joy.

She was playing with her breakfast one morning when the house phone rang. Pancakes weren't all that appetizing without chocolate chips in them. It was day two of being grounded, and Mikasa was already letting out an agonized moan.

"Mikasa," her mother peeked her head into the kitchen and signaled for her to stand up. "It's for you, love."

Another moan of agony left her as she brought herself to her feet. So much effort. All those restless days had made her lazy. Mama rolled her eyes at her drama.

"Hello?" Mikasa husked, voice thick with maple syrup. She clutched the handset to her ear, blinking slowly.

 _"Mikasa?"_ answered a familiar high-pitched voice. Immediately, she recognized it.

"Armin!"

_" Hey! How are you?"_

Grounded. Miserable. In need of chocolate _pronto._ "Good. You?"

_"Feeling much better. I'm coming back to school tomorrow!"_

"Yay!" she cheered, crumpling the skirt of her PJ’s in her free hand. "Finally!"

_"I know! I can't wait to see you again. I'm sorry about you getting bullied. I know what it's like."_

"It's okay. It's over now."

_" Eren told me you broke Sarah Hale's nose."_

She peeked over at her mother. She was busy washing dishes. "I did, yes."

_" And you made her wear the flower crown she ruined. Nicely done."_

"Thanks. How is he?"

_" Who, Eren?"_

"Mhm."

_" He's alright. Same as ever."_

She picked at a chipping fleck of paint on the wall with her nails. "Mmm."

_" He fell at school yesterday during recess. Scraped his knee up real bad. He's wearing bandages and everything."_

"Oh no. Is he okay?"

 _" _Yup!_ " _ Armin gave his usual hiccuping laugh. _"_ _Eren's always falling and cutting himself up. Don't worry. I'm sure he laughed it off like he always does."_

"Alright." _I miss him. I miss you. I miss you both._

The two kids fell into a short period of silence, which wasn't uncommon with them. When Armin spoke, it was to say something important. Mikasa rarely spoke at all.

 _" _He says he can't wait for you to come back,"_ _Armin added suddenly. 

Mikasa felt her heart give a happy squeal. "Really?"

_" Yup! He really likes you!"_

Heat rose to her cheeks. She found herself smiling. "I like him too."

_" Good! I'm glad I introduced you guys! I was scared you'd find him weird."_

"Well, he is a little weird."

_" Hey, so are you."_

"True," she giggled, bringing a hand to her cheek. Her skin felt hot. "Do you know when I'll be able to see him again?"

_" What do you mean?"_

"Ah." She shook her head. "Never mind. Silly question."

 _" _I see."_ _ Silence again. There was nothing but their steady breathing until: " _Hey, I know!"_

"What?"

_" Next time you go to school, take the bus in the morning. Don't have your mother drive you."_

"Why?"

_" You'll see why."_

Even through the phone, Mikasa could tell Armin was smiling.

"Armin…" she voiced skeptically. The boy practically hissed.

_" Mikasa. Just trust me."_

When did she not? "Okay."

_" See you at school then."_

"See you."

_"Remember to take the bus!"_

"I will!"

_"Okay, bye."_

"Bye."

Mikasa was too short to reach the base unit, so she pulled up a chair against the wall and climbed it to be able to hang up the phone. When she ended the call, there was a click, a small smile on her lips.

“Weirdo.”

**—o—**

"Are you sure you want to be taking the bus now, Mikasa?"

"It's only for today, Mama."

The morning was cold. Cool air crept up the skirt of Mikasa's school uniform and nipped her bare legs. It hurt to walk. Her knee-high socks only offered so much heat. Her mother was shivering.

"Goodness," the woman huffed, a cloud puffing from her mouth. "It's freezing out here."

It sure didn't help that they lived in the middle of nowhere.

"It's only for today," the girl repeated. Mama curled an arm around her shoulders and brought her close.

They walked, bodies pressed together, the mother's hand rubbing the girl's arm to keep her warm. Fog hung low in the air around them. The tall trees kept away the morning light. Everything was gray and creepy. A bird flapped its wings. An owl's hoot echoed through naked branches. Mikasa questioned whether following Armin's advice had been a smart decision after all.

When they finally made it to the bus stop, nobody was there.

It was a lonely little place, really. A large willow tree hunched over a wooden bench whose legs were drilled to the ground. The tree's weeping leaves hissed and swayed, their weary arms reaching down to nothing. Something about the bench, however, was thoroughly endearing to Mikasa. She smiled at it as if it had eyes to see her. Sometimes, inanimate objects had more character than living things. That bench was old in a human way. If Armin's grandfather were a bench, that's what he would look like.

"My God," Mama shivered. The tip of her nose was pink. "Remind me to bring a coat with me next time."

Despite the cold, despite her mother's soft cursing, Mikasa felt a smile growing on her lips. She curved her small hand around Mama's. Her skin was ice. She held on tighter.

"Be a good girl today," her mother said. "No nose breaking, okay?"

"Okay."

"If anyone bullies you, you better damn tell me. I mean it, Mikasa Ackerman."

"Yes, Mama."

They waited. Five minutes passed and Mama was pulling a handkerchief out of her bra to blow her nose. Poor woman. She was really suffering.

"Here," she sniffled, pulling out another handkerchief for Mikasa to blow hers. The girl gawked at her, horrified.

"Mama, two?!"

"Two what?"

"Two handkerchiefs?"

"What about it?"

"In your boobies?"

Mama threw her head back with a laugh that was uncommonly loud for her quiet nature. "They have to serve me for something, you know." She was referring to her bosoms. Gross.

Mikasa grimaced as her mother crouched before her, holding the handkerchief to her nose.

"Someday, you will understand. Boobies can be useful. Now, blow."

Mikasa blew through her nostrils until she felt that her eyes could pop. Mama wiped away at her boogers, making sure her nose was clean. "Useful for what?" the girl asked as her mother straightened, furrowing a brow. She regretted the question instantly.

"First of all, they keep your father very happy."

"Oh, barf!"

"Second, they are good for hiding things. Like tissues. And keys."

"I'm gonna be sick."

"Also, they nourish babies. That's the most important thing."

"Okay, I get it."

"You were breastfed until you were almost a year old. Did you know that?"

Mikasa shook her head, cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Sometimes, her mother said some really surprising things. "Please. No more, Mama."

"You're only nine." She patted her daughter's flat chest. "Don't fret. Yours should start growing soon."

"God," she groaned. Laughter again.

But then a figure appeared in the distance and Mama's laughter stopped.

"What is that?" she gasped, pointing at it. Mikasa turned her head and squinted at the silhouette in the fog.

"Is it a ghost?"

"Hold my hand."

They held each other, dark eyes trained on the figure that was slowly taking form. It seemed big at first, but then grew smaller, smaller, smaller. Was it an animal? A deer? A monster? Mikasa blinked hard, praying the creeping shadow away. But it did not leave them. It merely prowled closer. Closer. Still, it held no practical shape. It never stopped moving. It drew near.

"Mama, we're gonna die."

"Shh."

This is it. This is their end. Give all her dolls to Armin. Donate all of her clothes to whatever charity. She hopes that clouds are extra fluffy in Heaven. She lived a good life. She'll remember her friends, her loved ones, Eren. She will remember ballet. She will always—

Leaves crackling.

It's almost here.

A chill crept up her spine and swarmed her skin with goosebumps. Mikasa curled into her mother, hiding her face in her belly, her hands holding onto her shirt. There was silence, save for their breaths and the crackling of leaves beneath approaching feet.

Mikasa heard the figure come to a stop.

It's here.

_AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—_

"Oh," her mother droned suddenly, cutting her internal scream short. "It's just a boy. Good morning!"

Mikasa went to turn her head but then, suddenly, she heard the raspy croak of a familiar throat.

"Morning, ma'am."

Holy mother of pizza crusts.

It can't be.

"Wait, Mikasa?"

"Eren?"

_It is._

He gawked at her. She gawked at him. Mama bounced her eyes back and forth between them. Confusion everywhere. Fog everywhere. None knew what to say.

An owl hooted.

A bird flapped its wings.

Falling leaves met the ground gently.

And it all somehow culminated into this one scene between them, this event of meeting once again. It was almost as if they hadn't met outside of school, as if a world where they existed without classrooms and teachers was unimaginable.

There was a stunned silence. And Mama's cough. And then it broke.

"What the heck?" That would be Eren.

"What are you doing here?" Mikasa asked, voice hardly a whisper. Her throat felt tight. Her eyes dug into his and she watched as Eren's face went red. He was blushing. Or was she imagining it?

"I…" he stammered, looking down at his feet. His hands were in his pockets and his school bag was slung over his shoulder, a serious case of bedhead mussing up his hair. "Well, I live here." He pointed vaguely over his shoulder. Everything beyond him was covered in fog. "In that house right over there." There was no house anywhere that they could see. Still, Mama nodded. "What are _you_ doing here?" he asked her.

Mikasa went completely stiff.

Piece by piece, it all fell together.

_"Next time you go to school, take the bus in the morning. Don't have your mother drive you."_

_"You'll see why."_

_"Mikasa. Just trust me."_

Fists clenched. Lips pursed. Shoulders squared. She squinted at the ground. This was all Armin's scheme. He planned for this to happen. That cheese eater. That pumpernickel. That… cucumber… licking... yeah.

"We live nearby," Mama replied when her daughter took too long to answer. "So I'm guessing we're neighbors?"

"Guess so, yeah." The boy sniffled, wiping his nose. Mikasa prayed with every ounce of her being that her mother wouldn't pull out a third handkerchief from between her breasts and offer it to him. She didn't, thank God. "Nobody ever comes to this bus stop," Eren said as he came closer. "It's always just been me."

"You're here every morning?" Mama frowned, hugging herself. "All on your own? In the cold?"

A shrug. His gaze was downcast. "My dad works early."

"What about your—" Mikasa took her mother's hand and squeezed it so fiercely that she let out a surprised yelp. Her eyes flew down to her, shocked.

 _Don't_ , the girl mouthed, shaking her head. Mama was speechless.

"She sleeps in late," Eren said, rubbing his eyes. His tone was calm, voice tinged with sleep, eyes a little red. He looked as if he'd just crawled straight out of bed.

"Well, then." Mama smiled. "Good thing we came today, right?" She looked down at Mikasa, then back up at him. He was traipsing over to sit on the grandpa bench beneath the willow tree. "Now we know you're here and Mikasa can keep you company! Right, honey?"

Right. Yeah. Exactly.

Except that Mikasa may or may not have been shaking because that was Eren Jaeger, the one who gave her lunches and told her to fight Sarah and made her cry a few nights ago and who her father thinks she's got a crush on and her neighbor. Her stinking, friggin' neighbor and Armin never told her anything!

And now, they were going to share a bus ride.

To school.

A bus ride.

Twenty minutes.

That's how long it took to get to elementary school. That's how long it took for Mikasa to stop shaking. That's how long it took for her heart to beat normal again and for her lungs to open up and gasp because honestly, she was having a lot of trouble breathing around Eren lately. Like, a lot.

But she didn't have a crush on him. No, never. In that, Papa was wrong.

  
  



	11. The Girl With the Snowflakes in Her Hair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof, here it is. this chapter is so special to me, and i will always be touched by how special it was to so many readers. i truly hope that you--whether you are revisiting the story or experiencing for the first time--enjoy it and glean some meaning from it, too.
> 
> i made a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3KPCPLOj1mtVtU5F9N2dY9?si=RhXbwb49RLeDj89Vp-93jg) full of themes for mikasa, and i recommend listening to it as you read this chapter (you know, for the funsies). the tracklist is right below this note, simply click on the pictures or the link attached to this note and it will take you to it.
> 
> as always, thank you, and enjoy <3

::: :::

**—o—**

When Mikasa Ackerman is scared, she freezes. Her muscles tense, every minuscule fragment of her body winds up tightly. She recoils, crawling back into her shell. Even her gaze seems strained, trapped somehow. And it's all very daunting for Eren to witness. It always has been.

Desperate, his mind scrambles for ways to help her bounce back. Her eyes teem with something that looks very much like terror, whereas mere seconds ago they'd been relaxed. But now, they're wide. But now, the smile that had tinged her lips is gone, replaced by the frigid shape of a speechless circle. Sasha's face is arranged in a parallel manner, except that where Mikasa's reflects a light of fear, hers mirrors shadows of confusion.

Eren's eyes trace every aspect of the woman beside him, studying the hands that wring together, the lip that clenches between her teeth, the subtle flutter of her lashes as her gaze falls to the side. She won't look at him. She won't look at anyone. 

Sasha speaks.

“Jean said you'd gone out for a walk.” Her voice catches, so she clears her throat. “I… Wow. Never thought I'd find you here, though.” She chuckles, raking an awkward hand through her auburn hair. The tresses fall around her shoulders in wild waves, having recently been set free from the high ponytail she’s usually sporting. Eren sucks in a sharp breath, but she queries before he can say anything, “Are you two friends?”

“Yes.” Mikasa finds her voice. “We're childhood friends.”

Childhood friends, Eren thinks. Yeah, okay. They can go with that. “I found her wandering outside all lost,” he says. Her dark eyes finally rise to meet his. They cut into him, pleading. “I'm helping her find her way back.”

“Oh! Will you be out long?”

Their gazes tear apart and Eren's finally meets Sasha's. “Nope!”

“Good,” she grins, all the awkwardness seeming to have left her. Now, more than ever, Eren's grateful for his friend’s natural ability to recover quickly from uncomfortable situations, for Mikasa's rigid form renders him just as tense. “Because I,” Sasha sings, elongating her vowels, “brought you something from the party I know you'll really like!” 

She’s talking to Eren. She holds up the carry-out box in her hands, and Mikasa's nose tingles, catching the strong smell of food.

“Fried ravioli?” she chirps, rubbing her pert nose. Sasha gasps, a bit too enthusiastic.

“Yes!”

“Aw,” Eren says, giving his friend a grateful smile. “I love fried ravioli.”

She shoots him a knowing wink. “I know.”

After a moment, Mikasa wets her lips, her hands ceasing their nervous dance to clench at her sides. “Did Jean mention anything else? About me?” The question makes them all tense, but Sasha smiles kindly, her eyes strolling over to Eren before darting back to her.

“Nope. You want me to call him and let him know you're on your way back?”

“No!” All three jump from her sudden shout. “Sorry,” she whispers, her face going hot with embarrassment. “Um, no, please. I can handle it.”

“Okay,” Sasha blinks, handing the box of food over to Eren, who's quick to pry it open and pop a ravioli into his mouth. “Honestly?” she peels her coat off and turns to Mikasa, “I don't blame you for ditching that party, girl. It's full of blockheads. I swear, I was three seconds away from pelting Jean's mother upside the head with a wine bottle. I'm sure you know what that’s like.” Her coat flies over to Eren's arms, and he throws it on the coat hanger by the door, giving her a look when she wretches the box of food from his hands and thumps her fist on his chest gently. “I'm putting your ravioli in the microwave. If someone eats them before you get back, it ain't my fault.”

“Thank you,” he says. Sasha taps the cleft of his chin with her finger.

“Aw, look at you!” she chortles awfully loud. “All nice and shaved. I was starting to think we'd lose your handsome face to all that nasty scruffy scruff.”

Eren frowns, not knowing how to take that.

“It was good seeing you, hun,” she tells Mikasa, and that's the most they've conversed in all the time they've known each other. “Now that I know you're friends with this airhead we could all pick a day and hang out!” She wraps an arm around her in a rather awkward hug.

Her breath is warm on her ear:

“Don't worry. I won't tell Jean.”

“Thank you.”

“If he ever found out, he would kill us.”

“I know.”

“You for lying, me for keeping it from him.”

“Thanks again.”

“Thank me later. Over pastries. We'll talk soon.”

Whether Eren notices their little exchange or not, he shows no sign of it.

The other guests have begun to notice Sasha's presence. Some of them call after her, but she ignores them, saying in a louder tone so that Eren can hear, “Don't let him keep you too long—and watch out. He's got a real fruit fetish. Had a wild affair with a papaya once, too.”

The poor man throws his head back, emitting a loud moan.

“Don't let him tell you otherwise!” she exclaims when Hitch appears to grab her upper arms from behind and whisk her away. “He's been known as papaya fucker ever since! Everyone in this room can confirm this!”

“Sasha, hey!”

“Sash! Did you meet Mufasa?!”

“Who?”

Boom. The door closes and the shouting comes to an end, replaced by Eren's long sigh and the buzzing noises of the light bulb that flickers on over their heads.

“I'm sorry,” he winces. “They're not always this embarrassing.”

Mikasa's lips tighten, straining to crack into a simper at the apologetic look in his eyes. She stares at a few strands of hair that fall over his face, reaching past his lips, and she thinks of how this is the longest his hair has ever been.

It suits him.

“That's alright,” she tells him, following suit when he goes to make his way down the stairs. He trots along a few steps ahead of her as she descends rather slowly, careful not to trip over her heels. Once she's landing on the bottom floor and looking up at him, a smile shines on her lips. “I think I rather enjoyed myself back there.”

Eren's brows float upward. “You… Really?”

“Mhm,” she nods, gazing at the string of hair he pulls behind his ear but ends up falling in his face again anyway.

Eren smirks, the shadow of a dimple flashing. “Nice.”

For a beat, she contemplates belaboring, elaborating on Ymir's drunken zeal and Historia's kindness, the looks that Hitch kept giving her and the cryptic messages in her eyes. But instead, she waits for him to open the front door and hold it open.

“Eren?”

He sniffles, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his coat. “Yeah?”

“Why do they all call you papaya—?”

A garbled noise erupts from his throat, interrupting her.

“Please,” he grimaces. “Don't ask.”

“Did you really…?”

“No! I don't even like papayas!”

“Are you… saying that you prefer other fruit?”

Another garbled cry. “Mikasa, please!”

She laughs, and it's not that she's enjoying his pain, but she is.

“Then why…?”

“It's such a long story.” He motions for her to go outside, and after she does, he follows and closes the door behind him. “I don't even remember it that well— But I didn't screw a fucking papaya! I swear to God, I don't even know where that 'hole in the papaya' joke came from.”

She laughs again. She can't help it! Her giggles twist her face, so she covers it with a hand, and Eren wishes that she wouldn't do that, that she wouldn't keep him from something as beautiful as her silly little snorts, her sounds of happiness.

“Sorry,” she says, waving a hand before making her way down the slightly icy steps. Eren matches her tentative pace. Partly, because he doesn't wanna slip and fall on his ass. Mostly, because he can't bear to take his eyes off her.

They absorb everything they see, sucking in her presence with the hope it’d be enough to sustain him, but somewhere deep inside him, he knows that it will never be enough. This will never be enough. What he has for her surpasses any hunger, any need. He won’t even pretend to deny that.

Also, he may or may not be staring at her ass right now.

“Well…” Mikasa voices lightly, a feather above silence, pulling him from his thoughts. Looking at her now, Eren realizes—remembers—that everything about her is given off in humble portions. Her voice is quiet, her eyes soft, her presence faint; never does she rise a nuance above that. Unlike him, who shouts and curses and spits and fights and smears his loud presence over everything. Mikasa blends with the wind. Eren howls against it. He's an outburst, a frenzy, a storm. And Mikasa is the whisper, the drizzle that soothes his reckless toils and offers peace.

And that, actually, is why this will never be enough. Nothing will suffice as long as there's that inevitable notion that she'll leave again. And she will. She always will. She has to. Like clouds that stroll along the sky, coming and going, she passes through, for nature dictates this is the way things must go between them.

She stands with her back to him, her feet on the sidewalk, her gaze cast to some distant point ahead.

And he stares at her, wondering if fire ever yearns to be extinguished, if flames ever reach out to the sky and pray for rain. He holds on to this temporary spurt where she's still present in his life even if it means perishing. For her, he knows, he's more than willing to die out. Maybe it's true that some lights exist only for darkness, that some hearts beat only to break. And what an honor it is to burn for her. What an honor to have his heart shattered by the very hands that built it on their own.

She turns around, extending her arms at her sides as if she were presenting herself to him. Every part of her is saying _look at me, I am here, I am with you_. Her feet wobble slightly in her heels and Eren chuckles at her clumsiness, at the little line of imperfection in her excellent poise. 

“We have time, don't we?” comes her voice again. She's talking about his horribly embarrassing story, the one she won't abandon until she hears. “Plus, I think you really want to tell me.” And he supposes that yes, they do. That yes, he does.

**—o—**

The wind chimes.

Christmas carols.

They stroll along the sidewalk, listening in on the quiet choruses of songs. Most of the walk is made in silence, except for the five minutes it takes Eren to skim through the events of a very blurry, very drunken night.

Apparently, he'd been out with Ymir and Reiner when it happened. A few shots and some questionable liquids later, and Eren was hitting on a not-so-attractive girl. He claims to have forgotten what she looked like, but that people are indeed ten times more attractive when you're “schwasted” so it wasn't technically his fault. Mikasa nods her head in feigned understanding. She's never been intoxicated, so how the hell would she know?

So then, long story short, Ymir and Reiner tried their best to get him away from the woman, which kinda sorta worked, until more shots and questionable liquids happened and Eren found himself waking up on some stranger's bed, holding back a shriek of horror when he rolled over to find “Shrek, okay. An ogre,” sprawled naked in her sleep and a bruise the size of—wait for it—a papaya on his ass. Yes, his ass. Mikasa wonders if that was actually a hickey. For all she knew, he may as well have fallen and therefore acquired the mighty contusion, knowing him and all his graceful glory.

“I swear I never ran out of a place faster. I shit you not, Mikasa. I think I flew.”

“You poor thing,” she says. Eren's sigh is long.

“I know. And then…” He looks away, cringing. “Oh, God.”

“Tell me.”

“No, I can't. I don't want to.”

“Eren. Tell me.”

“And then…” The look on his face is one of utter dread. He swallows, adam's apple bobbing in his throat. “I showed Reiner and Ymir the bruise, and I swear they screamed so loud. Apparently, the thing looked like a papaya? Which I don't get? Because how can bruises look like fruit? Then Ymir said I probably got it from… Okay, she basically just said it was a hickey.”

“And what do you think?” she asks him, thoroughly amused. “Was it truly a hickey?”

“No. There's no way a fucking hickey could be that big. First of all, it was on my ass. There's no way in hell I'd allow someone's mouth anywhere near it, sober or not. But then, Reiner said that… the woman's mouth… was so big.”

“Ew!” Mikasa exclaims, gasping. “Oh, my goodness, Eren.”

“I know,” he sobs. “God, I know. I cried.”

“I'm so sorry,” she laments, her eyes radiating pity. “But how does that relate to you having an affair with a papaya? I don’t understand.”

“I guess that one day, they told everyone the story, and somehow it came across that I fucked a papaya, instead of… Yeah.”

“That's not even remotely close to what actually happened, though.”

“I know. But you know what? It was Reiner and Ymir telling the story, and you can expect anything from those two.”

“I see.”

Bits of ice crunch under their feet, Mikasa's stilettos thumping softly on the sidewalk, Eren's Converse dragging along.

“But, to be frank,” he reasons. “I'd rather they all pick on me for having an impractical fruit fetish than they know the truth. Because then, oh God. They'd never let me live it down.”

Mikasa crinkles her nose, closing her eyes and shaking her head to erase the mental image of a papaya-shaped hickey on his ass cheek. 

“Your friends are funny,” she says.

“They're really not. I hardly know why I put up with them.”

“They seem to really love you, though.”

Eren’s eyes raise at that, moving to gaze at her. He doesn’t say anything, but offers her a smile that she is quick to return.

They pass a restaurant, and Mikasa glances at the people inside. It's all mainly men, some accompanied by dainty women. Most sit alone with their gazes cast low, a glass of some alcoholic beverage in their hands, their elbows propped lazily on tables and bar tops. It’s a place for lonely souls, it seems. It's where they all go to waste their Christmases away.

She peers over at Eren, glad that he isn't any of those men tonight.

“What about you?” he chirps suddenly, lifting his gaze from his shoes. “Have you made any friends here yet?”

Mikasa's eyes sink at the question, clinging to the ground. “No,” she breathes, and Eren frowns at her, searching the eyes that won't meet him. “My fiancé is really the only person I talk to.”

A lip curls between his teeth. He chews on it, a little annoyed and disappointed to hear that. “But… hasn't he introduced you to his friends?”

“He has. I don't think they like me, though.”

“Why not?”

“I'm not exactly the most sociable person.” Her voice matches her eyes, her expression. It's low. “Plus, his mother hates me, and they all love her. So that doesn't really help much.”

“She hates you?” Eren asks, surprised. “Why?”

“She thinks I'm too quiet.”

He scoffs. “What a floof.”

“Yeah. She wants me to be different. Bubbly, outgoing. Everything I'm not, basically.”

“Doesn't your fiancé ever say something to her?”

“There's nothing he can say, you know? I don't blame them, though. I'm not easy, Eren,” she says, as if he doesn’t already know. “I don't even know how Jean puts up with me anymore. All I do is… waste away. Maybe I do need to change. And I've been trying to. But I just… I don't know.”

“Mikasa, there's people who are willing to love you just the way you are,” Eren tells her then, all serious. “You just have to find them.”

She lifts her eyes to meet his, and her heart clenches at the furrow of his brows, at the line of his lips. She sighs, because Eren's always known what to say to her: Nothing but the truth.

“Well, they're not it,” she murmurs finally, with the hope that it will bring the conversation to a close. But Eren guffaws so hard his breath fogs out, pressing it.

“Well, they can go fuck themselves.”

“Eren.”

“It's true! You shouldn't change for other people—especially for the sake of a man. If his friends and mom don't like you, that's their fucking problem.”

Despite the severity of his words, a smile creeps its way onto Mikasa’s lips. And she’s been doing that a lot. Smiling. She turns her face to hide it, but for some reason, she's not mad or even slightly bothered by what he's saying. If anything, she wholeheartedly agrees.

A flutter of affection beats within her. It's endearing really, how caring and honest Eren is. She thinks briefly of his scars. He has so many, and yet he's so gentle. Life has been harsh to him from the very start, and he's got the wounds to prove it. But where some people grow sour from their struggles, Eren's compassion merely grows. The more he aches, the kinder he is. The more Mikasa shrivels into herself, the softer his demeanor grows to pry her back open.

“Hey,” he says suddenly, eyes alight with an idea. “What are you doing for New Year's?”

Mikasa's eyes widen at the abrupt change of topic. “Oh. Well, Jean has to work, so I think I'm just going to spend it at home with our cat.”

Eren quirks a brow. “You have a cat?”

“Yes. His name's Jiji. He's kind of a… scaredy-cat.” He laughs forcibly at that, which makes Mikasa roll her eyes at him. “And he's always getting his head stuck in things. Particularly, tubes of Pringles.”

“Sounds like a dumb cat.”

Mikasa shrugs. “He's not so bad. Keeps me company.”

“You know, if you want,” he voices slowly, carefully. “Sasha's having a get-together at her place on New Year's. Everyone will be there. You can come.”

Suddenly, Mikasa stops cold on her feet.

Ah, yes. There it is. The doe-eyed look she's always wearing lately.

“I don't know if that's such a good idea,” she says, exactly as he predicted that she would.

Eren comes to a stop as well. “It's a chance to make new friends, Mikasa. It could be fun.”

“But they're your friends, Eren.”

“I can share 'em.”

“But…” she bites her lip, and he wants so badly for her not to do that anymore. “Do you think they'll even want me there?”

“Of course!” he nearly shouts. “Trust me. If they can put up with Hitch, they can put up with anyone.”

This gets her to smile a little. Good.

“I feel like she hates me.”

Eren sucks in a breath, not even bothering to contradict her. “She hates everyone.”

“Not you.”

“Oh-ho, especially me,” he says, and it's true. Why she hasn't just shot him or chopped his dick off in his sleep is a mystery to him, considering all the times he's purposely made her life impossible just for the fun of it. “Don't let her get to you. She's bitchy even to the people she likes. But she has a good heart, trust me. We've been friends for years for a reason.”

They start walking again. His eyes never leave her. 

“I don't know, Eren,” Mikasa sniffles. Lightheartedly, he pats her on the back, and it's kinda funny when she stiffens. Funny, because her eyes go huge. Funny, because he almost can't believe that he just touched her. Funny, because one would think that making contact with her wouldn't feel this plain. Sparks flying, fireworks exploding, electricity surging through him—there's honestly none of that. It's just his hand on her back, touching a solid object. He thinks he might just go ahead and touch fire next, touch the sharpest edge of a knife. Because holding what kills you shouldn't feel this simple.

He says, “You don't have to go if you don't want to, but it's an option. Our doors are always open for you, Mikasa. Any friend of mine is a friend of theirs.”

“We're friends?” she peeps. When he looks at her again, he sees that in her eyes there's a different kind of startle. They hold tenderness now. 

“I don't know,” he murmurs, struck by her expression. “Are we?”

She beams so brightly, it makes her eyes disappear. “Sure.”

“Well, there you go. Your first friend in the city.”

“Someone I already knew,” she notes, her smile fading. Eren throws up his hands with a dry laugh.

“Don't sound so disappointed.”

“I'm not!” she's quick to gasp. “I'm really happy that we're friends again.”

“Me too. Otherwise, you'd be fucking helpless.”

Mikasa bumps her shoulder into his, making him stumble lazily. “Harr harr,” she smiles. Eren smiles too.

“Aren't you cold?”

“No,” is her little sigh. “But I can't feel my toes anymore.”

He peeks down at her feet, noting that they don't wobble anymore. Good for her. She's getting the hang of walking in those contraptions. Honestly, he's always loved her feet, 'cause they're so cute and tiny. But Mikasa always found that gross, and wrinkled her nose at her crooked ballerina toes that Eren liked to pinch because it made her laugh, and her laugh is the single greatest sound in the universe so he'd make it his damn mission to memorize all her ticklish spots.

And he did. God, did he memorize them.

He wonders if they're still the same. And does Jean ever bother to exploit them? Does he ever dig his fingers into her and make her laugh until she's screaming? Does he ever sneak his hand into the crook on her neck when she's busy doing something just to see her squirm and get distracted and try to shrug him off? Does he ever slip his palms behind the crooks of her knees and watch her melt against him? The little dimples on her lower back were Eren's personal favorite. Especially when she'd let him trace them with his tongue. Ha.

_Fuck my life._

“Want some hot chocolate?” he asks suddenly, trying not to think of his tongue on her butt dimples because it's totally not okay to think about licking engaged women's butt dimples, Eren.

“Where?”

“Rose Park has this little stand—”

“Perfect.” Mikasa hooks her arm around his and whisks him away to cross the street. “Let's go.”

“Ah—” Eren's heart shoots up to his throat. “Alright, then,” and he could honestly choke on it. He honestly could.

_Third or fourth (?) time she touches me:_

_When she’s pulling me across the street after I'm done thinking about my tongue on her ass dimples._

_Nice._

They arrive at the park, and what Mikasa supposes were once lush rose bushes now stand bare along the walkways made of cobblestone, their emaciated branches looking like they could crack under the slightest weight of snow.

She lets go of his arm, and they walk side by side again in silence. A man plays saxophone somewhere near a bench, a woman shouts for her dog, a couple prance along hand in hand. They cross a dainty bridge, and a half-frozen pond sprawls beneath it.

This park is like its own little world. The tooting of cars somehow muffled in the distance, the light of the buildings replaced by that of the trees and lampposts erected all around. In its detachment from the rest of the world, Rose Park feels like a gasp of fresh air in the endless cloud of smog that is the daily life of a city.

The silence Eren and Mikasa share this time isn’t awkward, it’s the kind that can only be appreciated when there is nothing more to say. She could comment on their surroundings. He could comment on her grabbing his arm the way she did earlier. They could both speak if they really wanted to, but they don't. The noise of mild activity around them is enough for now.

Until they reach what looks like a little coffee stand inhabited by an elderly man with a beanie hat and a thick gray mustache topping his upper lip. He recognizes Eren the moment he sees him.

“Eren!” the man cackles, his smile creasing wrinkles around his eyes. “Merry Christmas! It's good to see you!”

“Merry Christmas, Gramps,” he grins. “They got you working on a holiday?”

“What can I say?” the old man shrugs. “It's better than nothing.” His eyes glance over at Mikasa, growing huge the moment they take in what they see. “And who's the lovely young lady?”

“Mikasa. She's a friend.”

“Hello,” she waves. The man's eyes shrink to slits with a pleased expression.

“Well, I must say, you are the single most beautiful thing I've seen all day.”

“I'm gonna tell Linda you said that,” Eren quips calmly. Pixis (that's what his name tag reads) barks out a laugh.

“I'm merely observing, kid.”

“Alright, Grandpa Dot.” Eren thumps his fist in the countertop. “That'll be the usual for me and a hot chocolate for the lady.”

“With marshmallows?”

“Yup! And whipped cream.”

“How much?”

“Plenty.”

Mikasa looks at Eren. He shoots her a wink.

“Coming right up.”

“I'll pay you back,” she whispers to him as their beverages are being prepared. He’s pulling out his wallet.

“Don't you dare.”

The girl purses her lips, sighing through her nose before knocking him one right on the shoulder.

“Ow!” Eren claps a hand over the pelted area, turning his head to gape at the old man. “Are you seeing this?”

Pixis clicks his tongue and waves an empty cup at her. “She's an abuser.”

“She is!”

“I am not.”

“Spike her hot chocolate, Gramps. Do it.”

“No!”

“Sure, but I'll have to charge you extra.”

“Please,” Mikasa begs. “Not the hot chocolate.”

“Don't worry, hun,” Pixis says, shaking a can of whipped cream and holding a hand up to the side of his mouth. “Eren's always liked rougher women.”

Mikasa's eyes widen at the sexual innuendo, noticing the way he pumps the can. Despite himself, Eren laughs loudly.

“Don't listen to him,” but he can't stop laughing.

 _Great_ , Mikasa thinks. _I am surrounded by perverts._

Pixis and Eren chat for a little bit, catching up on things like sports and the older man's pregnant daughter. They seem to share a past, and ask each other rather personal questions. When the drinks are prepared and paid for, both men wave out their respective goodbyes, promising to meet up on a day when they're both free of work to catch up over some coffee (but not drinks, apparently; the old man claims to have been sober for six years now). Eren calls him “Gramps”, Pixis calls him “Son”, and Mikasa, for some reason, can't stop marveling at that.

“How is it?” Eren asks her when he sees her taking a sip. They're walking again.

“Good,” she nods, and it doesn't taste as great as the hot chocolate Eren had prepared for her back at his apartment, but it's still decent. “Why is it that every time I see you you try to feed me chocolate?”

Eren makes an ‘I dunno’ sound, but when he takes a sip of his own drink, she swears she hears him say under his breath, “You could use the pounds.”

She squints her eyes at him.

He flashes her a grin.

And it's very hard to be annoyed at a face like that. Truly.

“How’s your coffee?” she asks.

A shrug. “It’s alright.”

And then, with a sudden flash of dread, Mikasa realizes where they're going. Eren's leading them right back out of the park.

No.

She doesn’t want to leave yet.

“Can we sit?” she blurts out suddenly. Eren blinks.

“Uh. Sure, yeah.”

They spot a bench nearby, and she's quick to trot up to it and sit down. “These heels,” she sighs when he sits beside her, fingers digging circles around her ankle. “They're killing me.”

“I don't know how you even manage, honestly.” Eren's eyes are fixed on something in the distance, but they fall on her after a while. 

She's staring at him. Blatantly staring. 

“What?”

“I just…” Mikasa shakes her head, smiling softly. “I just thought of something.”

“What is it?”

“All this. It's so familiar.”

“What do you mean?”

“You and me, sitting on a bench, waiting for nothing in particular.” Her eyes go cloudy. They reminisce. “Kinda like when we were kids?”

Eren throws his head back, gazing at the sky. “Ah, yeah,” he sighs, a cloud dissipating from his mouth. He spots not a single star above them, all of them buried by a murky sheet of light pollution. “That's right.”

“Except…” Mikasa mimics him. She too leans her head back and stares at the massive sheet of gray. “We're not kids anymore.”

“Nope.” Eren sighs again, closing his eyes. Mikasa turns her head to face him, gawking at his presence. Her eyes run along his neck, the protruding bump of his adam's apple, the tip of his nose, and the length of his eyelashes.

Some hairs slip out of his little bun.

She watches that too.

He's so close that she could touch him, absorb the warmth of his skin, and it almost appalls her how different he is from the child she first met when they were nine at a park very much like this one. With a smile that he can't see, she thinks of little Eren with his bright eyes and loud voice and incessant cussing, the scrapes on his knees and the dried-up blood he'd failed to wash off in time. 

His hands are curled around the paper coffee cup, and she spots the tiny scars on them, imagines the calluses on his palms and fingertips from restless days of strumming away on his guitar, or drawing out of boredom, or holding his mother's hands—not that the latter would cause him any external wear, but hands always have a way of showing how a person's had to live their lives. She thinks back on when she'd shaken hands with Ymir, how her mighty grip spoke of years of struggle and survival, and she hasn't touched Eren's but when they'd briefly made contact with hers when he was giving her _Illusions_ , she remembers them being very soft. Inviting.

“God…” he groans suddenly, making her blink. “Our bench. I wonder if it's still there?”

Mikasa's thoughtful for a moment, staring at his knuckles. Funny that they have no scars, since they're the single most abused part of his body. How many times hadn't she seen them scraped raw, bleeding after being reeled into solid surfaces, other people? And yet, they've always healed, erased the signs that show he's always fought back in life. 

“I wouldn't know,” she whispers, and after a silent beat or two, his head turns to look at her. 

Even his eyes seem to gasp.

“Hey, maybe this could be our new bench!”

“Our new bench?”

Eren's eyes grow even wider. “Fuck yeah!”

Giggling at his enthusiasm, Mikasa nods. “Okay.”

“What should we call it?”

“Hmm…” She holds the tip of her index finger to her chin, thinking. “The… Eren… and Mikasa Bench?”

Eren rises to his feet, turning to extend his arms in a dramatic presentation. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he declares to an invisible crowd. “This bench has officially been named: The Eren and Mikasa Bench.”

Mikasa crinkles her nose. “No.”

“No?”

“Never mind. It deserves a better name than that.”

“Like what?”

“The… Bench… Bench…?”

He snorts. “The Shit Bench.”

“The I'll Punch You in the Face Bench.”

“The Bench of Death.”

“The Avenge Bench.”

“Avenge Bench?” Eren sputters, barking out a laugh that makes Mikasa smile. “That sounds like some crazy _Star Wars_ sequel or something.”

She crosses one leg over the other, lowering her voice to sound like she’s narrating a movie trailer. “ _Star Wars: Return of the Avenge Bench_.”

Eren copies her tone, sounding even deeper. “Luke, I am your bench father.”

“Seek the Avenge Bench. Go.”

“You! Shall not! PAAASS!”

“Eren. That's from _The Lord of the Rings_.”

“Oh, shit. Yeah.”

Mikasa _tsk's_ in disappointment, shaking her head. “One does not simply accidentally quote Lord of the Rings.”

“One does not simply take that line seriously anymore,” he scoffs, taking a sip of his coffee.

“True.”

“Yep.”

“God,” she laughs, slapping a hand on her cheek. “We're terrible.”

Eren drops back beside her with a soft groan, smirking. “You're the one that suggested we call this bench the Avenge Bench.”

“You said 'bench father'.”

“Mikasa. Avenge Bench, though.”

“You're the one who started talking about naming a bench in the first place.”

“You're asking to get hypothermia in that dress.”

“You accidentally quoted Gandalf thinking it was _Star Wars_.”

“You need to be quiet.”

“You know what?”

“What?”

“I think I'll go to Sasha's New Year's party.”

“Wait.” Eren straightens, his eyes boring deeply into hers. “Are you serious?”

Mikasa shrugs a shoulder, tilting her head to the side. “What's there to lose?”

“Yes!” He beams so brightly, even his little dimple shines. “That's the spirit!”

“I'm excited.”

“Me too!”

“Will there be music?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“And dancing?”

“Noting that Ymir and Hitch will be going, yes.”

She gives a long, wistful sigh, her posture wilting slightly. “I haven't danced in ages.”

“You can dance with them. But watch out. Ymir swears she's a breakdancer but,” he pulls a face. “She isn’t.”

“Will there be alcohol?”

“You're joking, right?” She's dead serious. “Yes, Mikasa. There will be alcohol.”

“You know,” she murmurs, pulling her hair over her left shoulder to twirl a finger in the locks. “I still don't drink.”

Eren watches her take a sip of her hot chocolate, following the length of her ponytail, the curl that coils at the end. “Still following those strict diets of yours?”

“What can I say?” she shrugs, glancing at the paper cup in her hands. “They're too much of a habit now.”

He sighs, watching her back align, straight and poised as usual. Eren's own posture slumps with an arm bent at the back of the bench. “You don't have to drink if you don't want to. I'll make sure no one pressures you if that's the case.”

She gives him a grateful smile. “Thank you.”

“No prob.”

“What should I wear?”

“To the party?” She nods. “Anything. Whatever it is you girls wear to go out.”

She blinks. “What do girls wear to go out?”

“I… don't know?”

Mikasa pouts. 

“Jeans,” he settles, downing a swig of his coffee. “Just wear jeans. It doesn't matter.”

“Okay. I haven't gone to a normal party in years. They've all been… Well,” she motions vaguely to her fancy attire.

Eren snickers. “I think you'll have fun, Mikasa. My friends are a little on the weird side, but they're all good people.” He lifts his eyes from the ground to meet hers, and Mikasa has always hated snowless Christmases. But tonight, the world feels different. The trees are clad in dozens of small lights, all culminating in this sliver of sanctuary brought to earth, Eren and Mikasa's own little universe. And he says, “I'll make sure not even a second goes by that you feel lonely. I promise.” And Mikasa feels dizzy from her lashes to her toes because she doesn't deserve him. Nobody does.

“You're too good to me, Eren,” she says sadly. All he does is shrug a shoulder and laugh.

If she could take that sound, his laughter, and chop it up into a million tiny pieces to scatter across the night sky, stars would be more radiant. She's sure of it.

“It's what friends do.”

Mikasa sighs at that. God, he's just like this. There's goodness engraved in him so deeply, he doesn't see his generosity as acts of kindness, only as the natural thing to do. He doesn't get that Mikasa hasn't had a friend in ages, that Jean is the nicest person she knows, that Eren being so selfless, so honest, so caring, is so refreshing that it dumbfounds her. 

It's when a single flake of snow falls between them that her eyes tear from his to gaze around. Another snowflake follows, and then some more, until soon they're too many to count and Mikasa's holding out her hands and gasping out loud. 

“It's snowing!” she exclaims. And it's dazzling really: the lights, the flakes, her smile. Eren closes his eyes and takes in deep breath, discovering a mighty boom pounding in his chest now.

When his eyes bloom open, it's as if the world joins him in his exhale. On every tiny flake of snow clinging to her lashes, Eren finds the scattered pieces of his heart, what remains of it. If he were to gather her, all of her, in his hands, he would garner himself as an entire being. 

He feels an aching need to hold her then, to bring her close to his chest, feel her heartbeat and remind himself that he has one too. He is lost somewhere in her, yearning to be found, and he watches as traces of himself peek out through—for in her laugh, he finds his breath. In her eyes, his own reflection. In her voice, he finds the sinews of his life.

How can he live without her?

Specks of white meet her inky hair, and she's too busy blowing the snowflakes off of the palms of her hands to notice. Her rosy lips pucker and her cheeks puff out, and when a mirage of white flecks dance away from her fingers, her eyes crinkle in delight. “Did you see that?” she asks him. Eren nods and snorts at her ecstatic little squeal. Ah, he'd almost forgotten. Mikasa loves snow.

It's a breath, a whisper within him.

Unbidden, uncouth.

_I love you._

Eren's stunned at the sudden revelation, his mouth thawing open with a silent gasp. He feels his layers peeling, one by one, falling away until he's naked to the core and all that's left of him is oozing, throbbing honesty. He doesn’t see her notice the expression on his face. And maybe that’s a good thing. Still, he hopes that somehow she can hear him. That somehow, she's able to respond. 

Through his soul, he tells her: 

_I love you, Mikasa Ackerman. Your happiness is my own. Your life is my life. I live for the moments in which you smile, for your little bursts of joy. You hold the sky over my head, you’re the veins that keep me flowing._

_So live. Please, live the best life that you can. For the both of us._

_Live._

With a breath that blows out as steam, he rips his eyes away from her. There's a sinking feeling in his chest, and his hands reach out a second too late to save himself. He's tumbling, fumbling, falling. He'll be damned, truly. The fool. He has fallen in love—all over again—with the girl with the snowflakes in her hair.

“I think we should be heading back,” she mutters, smoothing down the skirt of her dress to brush off some snowflakes. “Jean will be calling me soon.”

And just when he’d felt like flying, she brings him crashing to the ground.

“Right, yeah. Let's go then.” Eren rises to his feet, finishing the last of his coffee and disposing of the cup in a nearby trash can. He glances up at the sky. The snow is really coming down now, flakes dusting kisses on his cheeks and face, consoling him in a way. Mikasa trots up to stand beside him, and without another word they both commence to walk. It's not until some moments later that he realizes he's all on his own.

Peering over his shoulder, Eren finds her standing with her back to him, her gaze fixed on the bench.

“Hey, slowpoke,” he calls, making her jump. “You coming?”

“Yes!” She whips around and her heels knock on the cobblestone, a hasty gallop of shaky feet that approach him. “Sorry about that.”

“What were you doing back there?” he asks when they're walking again. The girl merely shakes her head and waves him off.

“Nothing.”

And she will never tell him this, but Mikasa was memorizing the exact location of their new bench. She crams her emotions into a very private cellar within herself. And this time, she doesn’t fight them. She honors and cherishes them intensely. They fill her up.

**—o—**

Life is a perpetual act of letting go. One after the other, all things flow out in their egress. 

Eren knows this.

And yet, he wishes with everything in him that it didn't have to be this way. That he could strap Mikasa to his being, link her heart to his and feel it beating, synchronize its rhythm to his own. But it doesn't work that way. Life doesn't work that way. Sometimes, the people you choose don't choose you back. Sometimes, you gotta drop them off at fancy hotels so they can return to their fiancés, so they can go to their beds, not yours. Not you. _She doesn't want you._

“Will you come in with me?” Mikasa asks him when they’re standing outside the grand doors of The Plaza Hotel. “It's intimidating, that place.” Eren stares at her for a moment, unsure of what to say. “It's only to the front desk,” she continues, standing so close that he can smell her breath. Chocolate. She smells like hot chocolate. “I just… I'm afraid that if I walk in there on my own I'll turn right back around and never return. I need someone to keep me in check.”

A lazy smirk curves his lips. “I'll keep you in check.”

Mikasa looks up at him, her feet a mere step away from his. “Thank you,” and then she turns around and Eren's gaze stays glued on her, dependent on her, hopelessly clinging to this temporary mass will inevitably decompose.

She holds the door open for him, and he says thanks, then waits for her to catch up before a man with a thick accent approaches them and says hello.

“Mrs. Kirschtein,” he beckons. Mikasa answers to the name.

“Yes?”

“Your coat, madam.”

She slips it off along with her purse and gives the man both items.

“I will store this away,” he tells her.

“Thank you,” she says. The man gives a slight bow before leaving.

And Eren is so direly, inexplicably stuck between wanting to scream at the unfairness—the sheer, humiliating unfairness—of how incredible she looks tonight and just straight up calling it quits and never returning to her or this godforsaken place again. But Eren is a masochist. And Eren wants to stay. For a second longer, stay. For a second longer, watch her.

“I have your book.” She turns to him, smoothing a hand down her flat tummy. Eren's eyes fucking hurt from how hard they're fighting not to stray to all the places they want to go but know they shouldn't. “I'm not done with it yet, but I can give it back now if you want?”

“Nah,” he says, staring at the grand chandelier that hangs over their heads so as to not look at her. “Keep it.”

“But…” she starts. Eren gives her a look that makes her shut up and nod her head quickly.

“Thank you,” Mikasa leans in close to whisper. Chocolate. Fucking chocolate. Everything about her makes him think of chocolate. “I must say, thanks to you, my Christmas this year has been very interesting.”

“Glad I could help,” he says to her, and he can't help but think about the irony of it all. Six Christmases ago, she was all his. Six Christmases ago, this day was more than just interesting. He'd delved his tongue between her thighs, hooked her legs around his waist and made her come for him. And now all these things are so far out of reach, so forbidden.

Eren hopes that, in his place, her fiancé makes love to her tonight. Because she looks stunning and she always looks stunning and she's the type of girl who deserves to be made love to every single night, to hear how beautiful she is until she believes it.

His cheeks feel warm and a trickle of embarrassment travels down his body. He grits his teeth as if that alone is enough to keep him from his thoughts, but it’s useless.

In mere seconds, Eren imagines the night sky fabric of her dress bunched around her hips, the top part undone and draped around her skinny waist, her legs straddling his lap and her fingers in his hair and her panties pulled to one side so he can—wait, is she even wearing any right now? It doesn't look like it. Shit.

God, he's fucked up.

It's all wrong, but he finally lets his eyes travel to all those secret places. And he can make out the peaks of her breasts raised under the fabric of her dress, the fleshy mound of side boob peeking out and the glorious slope of her back leading to the supple curve of her ass. Fuck, if only he could be so disgustingly selfish and have her tonight, celebrate this cruel anniversary the same way that it ended. It's a sin, the worst kind of sin to even think it, but Eren's always been a sinner.

So, selfishly, he imagines her in his arms instead. And he’s trying not to peek down at her legs because then his immediate thoughts would be his hand pushed up between them, her porcelain thighs spreading and the breathy noise she'd always give him when he met her deftly, did her just the way she liked until she's an arching, whimpering mess and shit, okay, now he can't stop thinking of her like that and she's still watching him and Eren's awfully sexually frustrated for someone who just got laid last night. 

He’s closing his eyes and still, he sees it vividly: her neck stretching and dense, familiar litanies falling from her lips and her hips moving to bring him closer, deeper, with her hair and dress a mess and nothing in her mind but primal, blinding hunger, the burst of color on her cheeks and chest as she throws her head back and moans and— 

Yep! Eren's going to hell. He's so sure of it.

But then Mikasa looks at him and smiles, and he feels a dull pang in his heart, and with great sadness, he realizes that he's already there.

“Thank you for walking me,” she says as if he were a good person, as if he weren't just imagining what fucking her again would be like. “Are you okay?” she asks him, furrowing a brow.

Eren swallows hard, almost choking. “Mhm!” He wants to suck your tits and have his tongue inside you but no, yeah, he's wonderful.

“Oh,” she gasps suddenly, and Eren winces at the sound. Ridiculously, he wonders if she's somehow read his mind, discovered all the filth that teems his brain just by looking at him. But the hand that burns him through his clothes when it lands on his forearm is trusting and faint, oblivious to his foul imagination. “Hold on. Don't go anywhere. I'll be right back.”

And then she's off before Eren can even say anything.

With a sigh, his shoulders fall. Before the ache can begin to form, before the blatant hurt of missing her can take root inside him, his eyes latch onto her diminishing frame, watching her leave him to stand alone amidst the grandeur of the large lobby.

How long is it until he's hearing the faint tapping of her heels approaching? Who knows, honestly. He's busy counting the petals on a painting of a hydrangea when he hears her rising above any other noise.

“Hello.” The word pulls him back to her.

“Hey,” he breathes when she smiles at him, her chest bloating with an inhale and sinking with a sigh. Mentally, he chides himself. 

_Don't look at her boobs, don't look at her boobs, don't look at her fucking boobs, Eren, I'm gonna beat the shit out of you._

Suddenly, a pastry of some sort appears between them, resting on the outstretched palm of her hand. It's pink and puffy and it kinda looks like a cookie but it also looks like a macaroon. She's offering it to him.

“What's this?” he queries dumbly.

“It's a cookie,” she answers sweetly. Eren takes it in his hand.

“I… can see that.”

“You let me keep your book, I give you a cookie,” Mikasa reasons, and he kinda wants to punch himself in the face because it's honestly unfair how this woman can transgress from sexy to adorable in a matter of seconds. She will be the death of him. She honestly will.

“Thanks,” he says, even though the thing doesn't look all that appetizing.

“Merry Christmas,” the girl smiles. His eyes trace her lips, her nose, the snowy, glinting stars that melt into her hair and dust her ponytail. 

“Merry Christmas, Mikasa,” he replies. She gives him a little snort.

“Are you… walking the whole way back?” she asks him. Eren's begun to make his way towards the door.

“Yeah, I am.”

“Do you want me to get a cab for you?”

This makes him stall and turn to look at her. She's wringing her hands together, biting the inside of her cheek.

“I'll be fine,” he assures her. Mikasa's eyebrows scrunch together in concern.

“Are you sure? Is it safe to walk like that all on your own?”

“It’s okay.”

Her eyes flicker over his face for a moment, searching, and Eren wishes he could read her mind. Her expression is warm, but now suddenly her eyes have fixed themselves on the floor, obscuring her gaze from him.

“Well,” she tells him finally. “Goodbye now.”

She spins and then his eyes are on her back, admiring the contours of her shoulder blades. The further she walks, the less he can make them out. She’s fading.

“Wait,” Eren whispers before he can catch the word between his teeth, letting it slip out in a breath she somehow hears despite it being very quiet.

She stops.

“Yes?” Mikasa turns slightly to look at him, the light of the chandelier spilling down her frame. Her body is a painting, the culmination of lines and shapes that can dumbfound any artist.

 _Please don't go,_ his heart now begs, grousing in the misery of living without her. _Please, stay with me. I want you. I don't even care that you don't want me back just please, please, please stay with me._

Her eyes are calm and eternal, those two pools of ink that have always held the world.

And in the air, there’s a promise:

_Always, Eren. I will always be with you._

Then, gradually, the gloomy veil of despondence lifts from his eyes, revealing the light of new hope. 

“I'll… see you New Year's eve then?” he asks her.

Mikasa smiles at the floor, pulling that unruly lock of hair behind her ear again. Her hand looks so gentle. And her shoulders. And her knees. And what would it be like to kiss every single fingertip, every eyelash, every point of her hips, and arms, and back? 

“Yes, of course,” she says, in the same tone she’d used all those years ago to promise that she loved him. 

“Okay, great,” Eren nods, heat rising to his face. He doesn't care that he's blushing, or that his hands shake and sweat, or that she makes him weak at the knees and lightheaded.

He's happy.

He's happy because there's the promise of seeing her again.

“See you later, Eren,” the girl waves.

“See ya,” he waves back, and this time, it's him who walks away and leaves her staring.

He doesn't see how she stands, transfixed, clinging to his dwindling presence with her lips slightly parted. She doesn’t move until there’s no more of him to see, to experience. With every breath from her lungs, there's an echo:

Always.

Always.

Always.

_I will always be with you._

And the gasps that fill her chest somehow reach him. He feels them, feels her air. He breathes. He knows. Her promise is a breeze. It carries him.

Walking, Eren glances at the pastry in his hand. He thinks of his mother, the cookies she’d bake for him as a child if he begged her hard enough. He bites into it, and it's not nearly as good as hers, not even close, but it serves its consolation. Two more bites and the thing's gone. He's always eaten too fast. Ma used to get on his case for it. He misses her. He wishes she was here. If his mother knew all the perverted things he had been thinking tonight, she'd whack his bum. Hard. Give him a bruise even bigger than a papaya.

Eren smirks, imagining two big golden eyes peering down at him from the heavens. _I've raised you better than that,_ she'd say, then pull his ear or something. And he'd laugh like he’s doing right now. Because it's true. She really did raise him better.

If only he could call her up and tell her everything that happened tonight, recount the story he wants so desperately to share. He hopes now, more than ever, that there truly is a place called Heaven up above. His mother would surely be there.

“Mom, can you believe that?” Eren grunts, a nonbeliever talking to the angel he hopes is somewhere in the clouds. “I still love her. How sad is that? I'm scared to shit but at the same time, you always taught me to fight for what I want. And I want her.” He sighs at the loneliness that surrounds him, with not a soul present in the streets. “I wish you were here, Ma. You'd know exactly what to tell me.”

Snowflakes gather on the fibers of his coat, on the surface on his lips, tickling the skin of his nose and latching onto the preens of his eyelashes. Somehow, just somehow, Eren knows she's listening, smiling down at him right now.

He smiles back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a huge huge HUGE thank you to Ligana, once again, for betaing the edits in this chapter. i so very much appreciate your conscientious attention to detail and to what the characters are trying to convey. seriously, would not have the confidence to post this without you. 
> 
> see you all very soon <3
> 
> nati


	12. Lessons on How to Save a Life

“Ow, ow, ow! Mikasa, that’s my ear!”

“I know it’s your ear.”

“Ow! Mikasa!”

“Don’t you ‘Mikasa’ me.”

“I’m sorry! Whatever I did, I’m sorry!”

“Armin Arlert.” The boy flinched at her tone. “You lied to me.”

“I didn’t!” he squeaked, blue eyes fretful. “I just never mentioned it, that’s all!”

“I nearly died of a heart attack today!” Mikasa huffed, releasing his ear. “Eren’s my neighbor. My _neighbor!_ How could you go so long without telling me?”

“I just thought… I just…”

“Now Mama wants me to take the bus everyday to keep him company. Every day! Every morning with Eren! Armin, how could you?”

“Both of you need friends!” he cried, rubbing his ear. It still stung. “And what better way to get you two to talk to each other?”

“Maybe a _normal_ way?” Mikasa proclaimed, stomping her foot. “One that isn’t a scheme?”

“Negative. It wouldn’t have worked. You’re both too stubborn.”

“Too stubborn?”

“Hasn’t he been making you lunches? And you guys did, what, pass notes? It’s not enough!”

“Armin.”

“What?”

“You could’ve just been honest.”

“No. You would’ve avoided ever going near his house if you knew. Too shy.”

“Armin.”

“What?”

“Why do you want us to be friends so bad?”

“You’re both lonely.”

“I’m not lonely, I’m nine!”

“Well, he is! He needs a good friend.”

“He has you.”

“Not enough. His mom is sick, Mikasa. She’s dying.”

Silence.

“She’s… dying?”

Armin sighed. “I… I feel so bad for him. He has friends, yeah, but they’re not special. He needs special friends. Like you and me.”

“But…”

“Please, Mikasa,” he was begging now. “I love Eren, but sometimes, I worry that he goes too long without anyone to keep him safe.”

“Safe?”

“Yes. He’s dangerous. His heart’s too big, so he hurts a lot, loves a lot. Everything is a lot, too much. He needs saving sometimes, people to keep him safe.”

“And you think I can _save_ him?”

“You can try.”

“I’m no hero! I’m just a girl!”

“You can be a friend. It’s the same thing.”

Wilting slightly, Mikasa Ackerman admitted: “I don’t know how to be a friend.”

And then her friend grinned. “I’ll teach you!”

**—o—**

Lesson Number One:

One does not, and this means _never_ , ignore thy neighbor when waiting at thy bus stop.

And she wanted to. Boy, did Mikasa want to pretend that Eren didn’t appear every. Single. Morning. Armin was right. She’s too shy, too shy. Her heart was up to her eyeballs by the time she made it to the bus stop.

Eren was already there, of course, with his butt planted on that rickety, old grandpa bench. The willow tree behind him hunched over the quiet spot where he sat, its leaves swaying subtly in the autumn wind. He looked as if he belonged to another plane of existence. It was only when Mikasa drew closer, as leaves crumpled underfoot and she found herself under the shade of the massive tree, that she joined him.

Her ears caught every hiss of leaves, every breath from him and her and Mama, who greeted him as soon as she saw him, and even though his mouth was full with what looked like his breakfast, Eren nodded and spoke through a mouth full of dry Lucky Charms.

“Good mornin’,” he said, still chewing. “Morning, Mikasa.”

She opened her mouth. A draft came out. Cold and sharp. Voiceless.

 _Poop on a stick._ Why did Armin always have to be right? She had the social skills of a carrot.

“Mikasa,” Mama voiced softly, patting her back. “Why don’t you go sit with Eren while I go call your father?”

Well, hmm, lovely question. Why don’t pigs rain from the sky? Why don’t people have three eyes? Why do farts make bubbles underwater? It’s just the way things are!

“Go on.” She dug a hand into her bra, pulled out her flip phone. “Go.”

“But, Mama, I’m scared,” the girl hissed, her back to Eren.

“Scared?” her mother scoffed. “Nonsense. He’s just a boy.”

“But…”

Mama’s attention shifted to her phone. She punched in numbers on the keypad, buttons beeping with each digit she pressed. Mikasa’s eye twitched when her mother brought the phone up to her ear and mouthed, _Go._

Crud nuggets.

Begrudgingly, the girl lifted one foot after the other and traipsed over to the boy. Without a word, she hopped onto the bench and sat beside him, self-conscious of what her appearance might be. She’d brushed her teeth, combed her hair, even stolen some of her mother’s perfume to smell good that day. But what if she looked bad? What if she had something stuck on her tooth? She ate pancakes that morning **—** what if Eren didn’t like pancakes and he smelled them in her breath?

She bit her lip, staring down at her small feet. They couldn’t reach the ground, so they dangled in the air below her. Mama was whispering a few feet away, arguing with Papa in a hushed tone. Mikasa sighed, for she could always tell when they were arguing because her mother’s shoulders would take on a hunch they didn’t naturally possess, and her voice would become more intimidating than what it already was.

Mikasa loathed it when her parents argued. What did they even have to fight about now?

“You okay?” Eren asked her, his voice making her jump.

“Y-yes.”

“Are you sick?” A whisper, his eyes the color of leaves.

“I’m not sick,” she breathed, realizing that this was the first time she ever spoke to him directly since the day they met. Her heart was restless, pumping blood so fast it made her dizzy. She cleared her throat, afraid that the boy beside her might hear the screams it emitted. 

Eren raised his brows at her. She held her breath.

“You look sad,” he said. His hair was a mess. Now that he was so close to her, she could see aspects of him she’d never seen before. His eyes were brighter, his lashes longer, his dimple flashier and bolder than she ever imagined. “Usually, people are sad when they’re sick.”

“No. I’m not sick.”

“Huh,” and then he popped more Lucky Charms into his mouth.

Mikasa watched him pluck out all the wheat bits from the cereal, so that all that was left was the colorful little marshmallows. She gaped in horror as he brought a handful into his mouth. 

“Why do you throw those out?” she queried.

“What, the cereal bits?”

“Mhm.”

“I don’t like them. I only like the marshmallows.”

“The wheat bits are my favorite,” she confessed.

“For serious?”

“Yeah.”

Mama was still arguing with Papa. Her hisses were carried off by the early morning breeze, so that they never reached the bench. It really was as if that tree secluded them from the rest of all existence. 

“Do you want them?” Eren offered her his hand. Lucky Charms covered his palm, all the wheat bits he was about to throw away gawking at her.

“Sure.” She cradled her hands together and held them out. Eren dropped the cereal onto her palms, scoffing in disbelief when she popped it into her mouth and chewed discreetly.

“What kind of person likes the wheat bits?” he asked himself.

Mikasa smiled. “Me.”

And he smiled too.

Even the sky bore witness to their meeting that day. It was how friends were made. With thread and hope and little clumps of cereal, two spirits coexisting and merging into one. A funny thing, that. Destiny.

**—o—**

Winter came, slowly.

Golden, fiery leaves rained down like autumn snow. The wind carried them in hordes, sweeping the soiled ground they fell to. Temperatures dropped, branches shed their clothing, sunsets burned with the last few rays of light. The world took a deep, long breath. As it inhaled, nature stripped its warmth, bracing itself for the icy exhale that bathed the world in white. It was a cruel, harsh sigh, but it was borne with hope, patience. Once a year, nature agreed to die so that with the coming Spring it could resuscitate. And as it was with the world, it was so with Eren Jaeger.

His bright summer eyes dimmed. His sunny, resplendent smile waned. The colorful bursts of his spirit became as crisp and pale as the snow that piled up around them. Something in him changed. He was like the seasons, as vehement as the shifts of life itself.

The grandpa bench, you see, became their little haven.

Every morning, Mikasa would trot over to the bus stop with her mother and plop onto the spot Eren always reserved for her at his side. It was then that Mikasa would occupy herself with trying to decipher what season Eren was that day.

Sometimes, he was Spring.

Sometimes, he was Summer.

Sometimes, he was Fall.

Sometimes, he was cold, cold Winter.

And when he was distant, frigid, Mikasa had great difficulty understanding why.

Soon, she discovered that it was partly because of his parents. “Mom sleeps a lot,” he’d told her one morning. “And Dad’s almost never home. He’s a doctor. Doctors are never home.” When his mother slept the most, when his father was the most absent, when his dimple didn’t flash as much and his eyes barely rose to meet hers, Mikasa knew: It was snow that settled in his heart that day.

To see Eren upset is to witness something very daunting. Fire isn’t supposed to freeze, flames aren’t meant to cool and surrender their heat like that. They’re made to thaw, to offer warmth, to give off light. And that was Eren. But he did, at times, stop burning. And when he did, Mikasa cursed the defied laws of nature, for she hated it so much.

It was one day after school, when Papa was at work and Mama was still out running errands, that Eren flung a snowball at her face and bruised her cheek.

“Ow!” she screamed. Their school bus screeched and sputtered away. It was just them, and the bench, and the snow, and the white weeping willow tree that heard the young girl’s cry.

“Oh!” Eren gasped upon realizing that he’d hurt her, gloved hands flying to his mouth. “I’m sorry!”

Mikasa rubbed her cheek, glaring at him.

Lesson Number Two:

One does not, and this means _never_ , decline a snowball fight.

“Prepare to die.”

“Uh oh.”

“This means war.”

“No!”

“Come here, you big meanie!”

“I’m! Not! Mean!” Eren grunted, hurling clumps of snow at Mikasa and deflecting the neat little balls she threw at him.

They screamed and ran around to throw snow at one another. Eren was good at dodging most of her attacks. When Mikasa landed a solid one on his head, she squealed with manic laughter.

“Hey!” He shook his head violently, snow flying off his hair. “Not funny!”

“Yes!”

“No!”

_“Yes!!!!!!”_

“Oof!” he grunted, flinging another snowball. “Take that!”

“Oh yeah?” Mikasa gathered the biggest pile of snow she could manage. It dispersed in the air, barely reaching him. 

“Ha!”

“I quit!”

“Loser!”

Another flurry of white came flying her way. She went to run the other direction, when suddenly her foot slipped on ice and she toppled backwards and onto her back.

Eren’s gasp was loud.

“Mikasa!”

She was crying.

“Mikasa, are you okay?!”

Her hands hid her face, sobs poured into her gloves.

Eren’s heart catapulted up to his throat. “Hold on, I'm coming!”

His feet tore through the snow. He threw himself beside her, tentative fingers grasping her hand.

“Mikasa,” he panted, his cheeks red. “Mikasa, what hurts?”

No response. She was wailing now.

“Mikasa, talk to me! Please!”

“Mrohbrughbleghup.”

“What?!”

“Mehuprmhmph.”

“I can’t— I don’t understand!”

Suddenly, the world spun.

“Gotcha!”

Eren found himself on his back, blinking up at a grinning, perfectly fine Mikasa.

“I win!” she triumphed, slapping a handful of snow on his head. “Who’s the loser now?”

Eren wiggled beneath her, groaning at the chill that caked his skull. She sat on his belly, which made him grunt. “Heavy,” he grimaced. “Dying…. can’t…. breathe… need… _air_ …”

“I’m not that heavy,” she frowned. He went to move his arms, but they were pinned down to the ground on either side of him. Her nails dug into his bare wrists, her breaths puffing out in small clouds that made her chest stutter. Her cheeks and nose were rosy, skin so pale it made the flush stand out like highlighted streaks on paper. There was so much white around them. Even her eyes abandoned a sliver of their dark, dark tone. They were silver, not black. Shiny, perfect silver.

Then it hit him.

Holy sh*t. Mikasa Ackerman was touching him. On top of him. A girl!

Abort! Abort!

Abort mission!

“Get off,” Eren huffed weakly. He felt his cheeks tingle with heat, which puzzled him. Girls were gross, they had cooties. But somehow, Eren didn’t mind Mikasa’s cooties at all.

“Mikasa,” he wheezed. She blinked at him. There were snowflakes in her hair.

“What?”

“Your eyelashes. You got snow on your eyelashes.”

“So do you.”

“Get off.”

“No.”

“What, are you gonna kiss me?”

“Ew, no!”

“Then get off me!”

“But—”

“I’ll kiss you if you don’t get off me!”

“Fine!”

She rolled off of him and onto the pillows of snow—but only after punching him on the arm.

“Ow.” It hurt like heck, but Mom always told him that boys are supposed to protect girls, not hit them. So Eren let himself stay hit. He made it an exception, though. Only Mikasa could punch him without getting a punch back.

He heard her giggles lurch into the air, her laughter beating on his eardrums. They both had snow pressed to their skins and clothing, their school bags flung to some abandoned corner by the bench. Because they lived in the butt crack of nowhere, cars never passed by. There was no sound save for the cool hush of the wind and the warm torrents of their breathing.

Mikasa turned her head to peer at him, splitting her lips to say something, air slipping in between them to swell her throat. But that same breath lodged itself there. His eyes were closed. He was frowning, like a child who sees nightmares at the backs of his eyelids.

She blinked, studying him. His lips were chapped. She thought of what he’d threatened her with earlier, how hasty she’d been to refuse. Surely, he didn’t really mean it. Eren wasn’t the type to just grab a girl and kiss them. 

In the privacy of her own mind, she wondered what his lips might feel like. If they kissed like grown ups, would it be soft? Would it feel sticky? Would she get slobber on her chin? Would fireworks pop between them the way they do in movies? Would he taste sweet? Bad? Like porridge? Like chocolate ice cream with whipped cream on top?

“Get up, silly,” she told him, rising to her feet. He cracked an eye open to look at her. She sighed. “Our moms are going to kill us.”

“Why?” he queried, still on the ground.

“Because! We’re covered from head to toe in snow.”

“So?”

“What do you think snow does in heat, Eren?”

“Uh…” he scrunched his eyes, thinking. “Melt?”

“Exactly. And what happens when it melts?”

“It becomes water.”

“And what does water do to clothes?”

“Burn it!”

“Eren.”

“Ugh, Mikasa, it’s no big deal. My mom won’t care.” Groaning, he brought himself to his feet and eyed her bruise. “Sorry about your cheek,” he murmured, ashamed of himself.

“It’s okay,” Mikasa shrugged. She went to turn around, to get her school bag and his, but his fingers curled around her hand in a flash, stopping her.

“I’ll make it up to you,” he said.

And then green eyes closed.

And snow-dusted lips puckered.

And they drew closer inch, by inch, by inch.

And Mikasa could taste the chocolate, the sweetness, the childish excitement on his lips as if they already connected to hers when suddenly **—**

“Wanna eat some spaghetti?!”

Mikasa’s features fell. “Some what?”

“Spaghetti!” Eren grinned, sniffling. “Ma makes the best spaghetti in the history of ever. Your mom’s not home yet, right?”

“Uh.” Her eyes fell to their hands. Still joined. “Right.”

“Then come over! You can meet my mom.”

“Your mama?”

“My _mom_ , yes. Wanna meet her?”

A rosy lip clenched between her teeth. “I can’t, Eren. I have ballet in an hour. Maybe tomorrow?”

“Can’t,” he sighed, letting go of her hand. “I've got practice. How about Wednesday?”

“Ballet. Thursday?”

“Doctor’s appointment. Friday?”

“Dance recital.”

“Shit.”

“Turd nuggets.”

They trekked to their school bags in a solemn, solemn march: chins down, gazes low, shoulders slumped, laden with sadness.

“This sucks,” Eren whined.

Mikasa hummed in agreement.

When they both had their bags on their backs, when they both swept off the snow on their coats and legs, when it was time to go their separate ways and neither of them wanted to, Eren said, “We’ll figure it out. Mom’s not going anywhere anytime soon.”

And Mikasa felt her heart crack.

“I… I should go,” she told him, thinking of her own mother. Who was healthy. Who was alive. Whom Armin never had to refer to as someone who is _sick Mikasa. She’s dying._ “Mama will be home any minute, you know.”

“Okay,” the boy said, lingering. There was a level of reluctance in him, a procrastination that neglected going home.

“Goodbye, Eren.”

“Bye.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See ya!”

They split, Eren going east, Mikasa going west, her eyes up north with her hair flowing south and her heart, somehow, swirling right in the middle, like the needle of a compass that spun, and spun, and spun, and never landed.

**—o—**

Kisses don’t taste like chocolate. Mikasa knew for a fact, because when she pecked her own mother on the lips, or her father, their chaste goodnights would taste like either absolutely nothing, or Mama’s chapstick. That’s it. No chocolate, no sweetness. Just good ol’ nothingness and Carmex.

How does kissing even work? You pucker up and boom, bam, done. That’s how her dolls kissed. She’d bring their plastic, empty heads together, tilt them slighting to the side, and three mississippi’s later and it was over. She’d giggle, the rebel. Kissing was for adults, and her dolls weren't adults, but at times like that, she’d let herself dream. What if? What if kisses did taste like sugar and cocoa? What if they did last three whole mississippi's of pure gold? 

One night after showering, a determined Mikasa decided to “practice”. She wiped the fog off her mirror so that she could see herself. With her hair plastered to her cheeks and neck, she eyed the drops of water that rolled down her pasty skin, puckered her pinkened lips and leaned forward.

Forward.

Forward.

Until she felt the cold, smooth surface on her lips.

_One mississippi, two mississippi, three mississippi._

Done. She leaned back and observed the print her kiss left on the glass, the two foggy blotches her nostrils breathed against it. She wrinkled her nose, and made a mental note to never breathe if she ever kissed someone. She could go three seconds without breathing. Yeah.

But wait.

What about those weird, long kisses? The gross ones that she sometimes saw on her parents’ TV that made her face feel hot? How do those people go so long without breathing and not pass out?

Never mind, scratch that. Mikasa would never kiss anyone again. Not Mama. Not Papa. Most certainly not anybody else. It was final.

But she couldn’t stop staring at Eren’s mouth; how it moved, the easy way it slipped into smiles, frowns, seldom ever silence. On the days he _was_ silent though, his mouth would not move at all, except to form straight, taut lines that looked as if somebody had zipped his lips together and secured them with a lock.

Would a kiss be the way to free them?

Mikasa mentally slapped herself for that thought.

Lesson Number Three:

One does not, and this means _never_ , think of kissing thy friend.

It was one of those days, when his lips were sealed, that they suddenly unzipped and moved to ask, “Do you have ballet today, Mikasa?”

She blinked at him, swaying slightly when their bus ran over a bump. “No, why?”

“Can you come over?”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to be alone today.”

“Isn’t your mama home?”

“I’m always alone,” he breathed, staring down at his hands. Mikasa had to remind herself that loneliness wasn’t a good thing to most people, the way it was for her.

“Not always,” she whispered kindly. “You have me. We’re neighbors!”

“Then be a neighbor today and come over!” The words exploded out of his mouth, surprising her. “Pretty please with a cherry on top?”

“I would have to ask for permission first.”

“From who? Your mom?”

“She’s strict.”

This didn’t faze him in the slightest.

“Ask her! Here.” His cell phone went flying her way. “Call!”

And so she did. She punched in the numbers. Waited. Waited.

_“Hello?”_

“Mama.”

Quickly, Eren pressed his ear to the back of the phone to listen. His close proximity made Mikasa stiffen, made words tangle in her mouth.

 _“Mikasa?”_ Mama took her silence as reason to be alarmed. _“What’s wrong? Is everything alright?”_

“I’m fine. Um, I have a question.”

_“What is it, honey?”_

“Can I come over Eren’s house today?”

A pause.

_“To do what?”_

_Homework_ , he mouthed.

“Homework,” Mikasa repeated.

 _“He’s a boy, Mikasa,”_ sighed Mama. Mikasa felt heat rising to her cheeks.

“He’s my friend. Armin’s a boy too.”

_“Yes, but I know Armin.”_

“You know Eren.”

_“Mikasa.”_

“Sorry.”

Mama’s sigh was long.

Eren’s shoulder met Mikasa’s, his hair tickling the side of her face, the bitter taste of rejection garnishing the already sour silence that was shared between them. 

_“Alright, fine.”_ Mama capitulated suddenly. _“You can go.”_

Both kids gasped.

_“You have two hours. I will pick you up, okay?”_

“Yes. Thank you, Mama.”

_“Alright.”_

Mikasa squealed, “She said yes!”

Eren did too. “Yay!”

Had Armin been there, he would’ve been ecstatic. He also would’ve noticed her copious lip-gawking. And she would’ve begged him not to tell, would’ve asked him _pretty please with a cherry on top?_ _  
  
_

**—o—**

  
  


Eren’s house was—in every way—the total and complete opposite of Mikasa’s.

Hers had a garden and his had trees. Hers was bright with colors and his was dull with age. Hers was two stories high and his was only one plus an attic. Hers was upkept like a doll house and his resembled the unkempt antiquity of a cabin. But no house was better than the other. They were both equally a home, both equally a sanctuary, except opposites in appearance and age. Mikasa could never imagine growing up in his home. Eren would probably feel the same way about hers.

And so they entered through the garage: a large wall that slithered upwards like an electric snake whose loud humming only ceased once it adhered to the ceiling. Inside, there was a pickup truck, old and rusty and abandoned. “It’s my mother’s,” Eren explained as the garage door grumbled shut. It was then that it occurred to Mikasa that the last time his mother may have driven could’ve been **,** by the looks of it, years and years ago.

They snuck their way inside, small feet shuffling quietly on the carpet. In Mikasa’s home, one had to always take off their shoes before entering, but Eren’s home ran by different laws. The stained floors confessed it. With shoes full of snow, he pottered right in, leaving a trail of melting white behind him.

His house was bigger on the inside. It was warm. Not just in ambiance and temperature, but the colors of the furniture, lights, walls, all possessed their own unique calidity. The sunlight hardly crept in through the curtained windows, so Eren had to flick on a light. Every light he revived on his way to his bedroom was dim. It was as if the entire place were afraid of being too loud. Everything was quiet. The lights. The air. Even Eren.

“This is my room,” he whispered, opening a door. “You can leave your stuff here.”

“Okay.” It seemed that even voices were dim in here.

“Sorry about the mess.” And boy, was there a mess indeed. His room was even messier than his hair!

“That’s alright,” Mikasa muttered, stepping over a sea of scattered legos. What looked like a half-finished spaceship of some sort laid abandoned nearby. Drawings of cars, buildings, and even more spaceships hung on his walls, drawn by him, it seems, and some colored and signed by Armin. A guitar rested on his unmade bed. Worn clothes and toys littered every other space that could’ve potentially looked clean, but weren't allowed to. A dirty soccer uniform was kicked out of view by an embarrassed Eren, who sniffled and cleared his throat.

“My father’s not home,” he explained, as if his absence wasn’t obvious enough.

“Mine hardly ever is either,” Mikasa said, much too familiar with the cons of having a workaholic parent.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

And with that, their backpacks and coats were chucked to some random corner, just like the rest of Eren’s things.

“Come on,” the boy said then, his eyes shining. “I want you to meet my mom.”

Mikasa nodded, gulping down the pounding in her throat. Her heart landed with a thud, leaving an unpleasant taste where it’d hammered away at the back of her tongue.

Their footsteps were bated breaths that fused with the silence. Down a long hallway, to the right, was a forlorn door. They stopped there, and Eren’s hand paused just centimeters away from the doorknob. That was when he turned to look at Mikasa and whispered, “Please don’t be scared.”

“I’m not scared,” she lied.

Eren’s lips moved to say more, but then they hid in his mouth. With an inhale that puffed out his entire chest, he clasped the doorknob, turned it, pushed.

The door creaked open.

Just a sliver.

A thin line.

Enough for Eren’s voice to slip inside.

“Mom?” No answer. “Mommy?” The sliver grew, and grew, and grew. And soon, Mikasa’s features were freezing, one by one, at the sight before them.

Machines. The likes of which she’d only seen in movies, or imagined in her mind, all beeped and connected to the frail, thin woman who hardly filled the bed she laid on. All the lunches that were made for her, the flower crown that got destroyed, her first suspension, the boy that stood beside her and motioned for her to come in, were all linked to this fragile human being, this thin thread of life. Mikasa could hardly believe it. Eren’s mother felt so grand, but looked so small, so finite.

“Mommy,” he whispered, his lips on his mother’s ear. “Mom, wake up.”

A long inhale filled the woman’s nose. Mikasa held her breath, afraid that her own air might be polluted and sicken her further.

“Mom.” Eren smiled, with a gentleness Mikasa had never seen him use before. “Mom, guess what.”

“What?” It was a cracked, quiet noise. The remnant of a voice that once trilled loudly.

“I’ve got a surprise for you.”

Eyebrows the color of Eren’s hair furrowed. “Uh oh.”

“No, no, it’s good. Trust me. Mikasa’s here.”

“Mikasa?”

“Look.”

That was when she opened her eyes.

Gold. Like the flecks of light that dusted Eren’s irises.

“Mikasa,” she smiled as her son pushed her hair behind her ear. “It’s so good to finally meet you.”

“Yes,” the girl said, her heart back up in her throat. “It’s nice to meet you too.”

“I’m Carla.”

“Hello, Carla.”

“Eren’s told me lots about you.”

“Mom!” the boy hissed, eyeing her sternly.

“Well, I’m not lying.”

“Shhh.”

Her drowsy croaks transformed into breaths: “She’s pretty.”

“Stop, Ma!”

“No wonder Armin says you got a thingy thing for **—** ”

“No!” He covered her eyes with his hand. “Okay, time to go back to sleep. Goodnight, Mother.”

“Hold up,” Carla giggled, a healthy, happy sound. “I’m only joking.”

Her son grumbled something under his breath. She removed his hand from her face, brought herself up to a sitting position, wincing.

“Candy?” Eren asked her.

Her smile was faint. “Please.”

He scurried to a nearby drawer, pulling out a lollipop that looked nothing like regular candy at all.

“I would offer you one,” Carla told Mikasa. “But they’re pretty nasty.”

“That’s alright,” she said, her eyes glued on the sheet that fell from her shoulders.

Carla’s bones were like blades. They pressed out under her skin, sharp points just a jab away from bursting through the surface. It seemed that all of her insides were made of knives; wincing features told her so. Veiny hands trembled as she unwrapped the lollipop and popped it into her mouth, the hardened shell clinking against her teeth. Her hair, a brunette mess, was pulled in a ponytail that hung loosely to one side as a consequence of her napping.

 _Please don’t be scared,_ Eren had told her.

But Mikasa quickly realized that there was nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all.

Sometimes, God put big souls inside bodies that were far too small to carry them. And that was Eren’s mom. She had dimples when she smiled, and eyes that shone so bright that no sickness could touch them. She was ill, and frail, and grimaced as she sucked on her morphine lollipop, but it was so clear to see where Eren got his zest for life and altruism from. Perhaps his father was the quiet one of the family, because Carla was as loud, as funny, and as outspoken as her son. Her eyes crinkled when she laughed, just like Eren’s. She was hot-headed and smart and sassy, and when she stood up to get herself a glass of water, the way she swatted her objecting son away showed how stubborn she was too. As she walked, her nightgown barely hanging to her skin, Mikasa saw that she had a small tattoo on her upper back, a sun with flames rooting out of it, and a tattoo of a rose on her ankle. Suddenly, the truck, the drawings, the guitar, they all made sense. She was a big, big soul, crammed into the constricted spaces of a frail body. And her son, who was just as fervent, seemed to carry the parts of her spirit that her sickness wouldn’t allow within herself.

“I haven’t always looked like this,” she told Mikasa after a while of conversing, as a glass of water shook its way up to her lips.

“Neither have I,” the child said. “I just grew one more inch this past month. And my hair’s gotten longer. Mama wants to cut it, but I keep telling her not to.”

Carla’s eyes were tender. “Do you like having long hair?”

“Mhm.”

“Me too. And this one,” she ruffled Eren’s hair, messing it further. “Is a pain when it comes to getting haircuts.”

“I hate them,” he concurred. “I have to sit still so long and my butt gets numb.”

“And your ears get itchy.”

“Because of the little hairs that stick to my skin! Gross!”

“But that didn’t stop him from cutting off his own hair when he was four.”

“I was hot!”

“I still can’t believe your father let you play with those scissors.”

“I cut my own hair once too,” confessed Mikasa. “My mother cried.”

To her surprise, Carla laughed. “You’re very smart, Mikasa. Do you like to read?”

“At times,” the girl murmured, blushing at her compliment. “But not as much as Armin.”

“Nobody likes to read as much as that mushroom head,” Eren scoffed. His mother flicked his earlobe.

“You’ve got some nerve calling him mushroom head—”

“—It’s out of love!—”

“—when your own hair is an atrocity, mister.”

He went to stick his tongue out at her, but Carla had already predicted that he would. She took his nose between her fingers and pinched hard.

“Ow!” Eren’s cry was nasally. “Mommy, stop!”

She didn’t. She just kissed him hard on the side of the head.

“Mommy!”

Mikasa found herself biting back a laugh.

“What do you say we make some spaghetti tonight?” was Carla’s sudden proposal, letting go of Eren’s nose. “I’m feeling up to it today.”

“Whoo!” her son shouted, throwing himself back on her bed. The mattress swayed and complained under his bouncing body, causing her to spill some water on herself.

She sighed, but then her gaze was on Mikasa and her voice was welcoming. 

“Mikasa, would you like to eat with us?”

Lesson Number Four:

One does not, and this means _never_ , willingly refuse thy friend’s Mama. Or spaghetti.

And thus: “Yes!”

**—o—**

Friendship blooms much in the way that flowers do. Through the piles of snow, the chilly air, the scarce sunlight, Eren and Mikasa formed a bond that flourished so effortlessly, nothing could wither it—not even ice.

They understood one another. Seldom did Mikasa need to speak for Eren to understand what she was saying, and never did Eren need to explain himself, or even apologize, when it came to her. They were so different, and yet entirely alike. Like sun and moon, eclipsed each time they met. Nature had a funny way of defying its own laws, of stringing the impossible together.

Armin was happy, healthy.

Mikasa sat with them at lunch now, even though she sometimes missed the sweet librarian that had smiled at her every day that she got bullied. But as the world changed, so did Mikasa’s life. She had friends now. Two. Two whole live, breathing friends. It was awesome.

She met Eren’s father on a day when the clouds were crying. Rain pattered on the roof and Grisha Jaeger, as he introduced himself, came home early from work. Carla felt well enough to cook. Grisha was kind, ruffled Eren’s hair, shook Mikasa’s hand, kissed his wife on the forehead. It was a good day. Mikasa skipped home that afternoon, splashing her rain boots on shallow puddles.

The life of a child is filled with tremendous, little pleasures. When Mikasa thought about eating chocolate or dinner at the Jaegers’, or spending lunchtime with her chatty friends, her heart would flitter with the excitement of something good to come. The whole world was bright and happy because chocolate, Armin, Eren, and his family existed. 

But youth is filled with small, overwhelming tragedies too.

Everything bad feels like the absolute end of the world. So one day, when Eren had tomato sauce on his cheek, and Mikasa snorted into her napkin, and a loud crash suddenly made them both jump, a horrified Carla gaped at the shattered dishes in the kitchen sink, the hands that had cramped and locked and failed her. Tears formed in her eyes. Mikasa saw them, and the spaghetti in her stomach hurt, the happy whistling of her heart stopped abruptly.

“Mom?”

“I’m sorry. I think I need to go lay down.”

And with that, she vanished.

Death was such an incredible concept to try to understand. Mikasa was smart enough to know that it was inevitable, a natural part of life, that eventually all things must return to the place they come from. All life is burrowed. Our bodies are burrowed. Our souls and hopes and dreams, all borrowed. And one day they must return to God. But it was the cruel unfairness that comes with souls returning home too early that she simply could not fathom.

Why did Kami allow good people to be sick?

Armin?

Carla?

Why?

“Mikasa,” Carla said one afternoon as they did Eren’s laundry. “This is your home, you understand?”

“Yes,” she whispered, folding a shirt into a neat little square. “I understand.”

“So if you ever need anything, you are more than welcome to come here. My home is your home.”

“Oh my God, I just realized,” Eren gasped suddenly.

“Carla turned her head to look at him. “What, baby?”

“Mikasa… _Es su casa!_ ”

“Eren,” Carla droned. “You’re asking to get grounded.”

“But it’s funny!”

Despite the small laugh that slid out of her, a sudden wave of anxiety washed over the small girl. The clock was ticking. In retrospect, all beings are dying; even Mama, even Papa, even Eren—the epitome of life itself. But his mom was _dying_ dying. She was disappearing right before their eyes. Mikasa feared that one day, she would wake up and Carla would simply be gone. Her tattoos, her smiles, her spaghetti dinners and afternoons spent folding clothes, all gone.

 _Kami,_ she breathed in her being. _I’m not ready. I’m not ready to say goodbye._ She was too young. Eren was too young. The world was too young to lose Carla Jaeger.

If only she could will people into health. If only Mikasa could love Carla so, so much that she cured her. But one cannot love another’s illnesses away. You can only love them. Just love them. Sick and all.

“Can I bring my parents over this weekend?” she asked. “I would like for them to meet you.”

Her friend, the woman who brought Eren into the world, the one with sunlight in her eyes, she said, “Of course, sweetie.”

And Mikasa took more time from God. She snatched the clock from Kami’s great, big hands and demanded more minutes, more seconds, more breaths. _You’re not taking her yet,_ she seethed. Not yet. Not yet.

**—o—**

“I have the butt of a damn rhinorocerorous!”

“I think you mean rhinoceros, honey.”

“To slag with this dress! And to slag with you!”

“I think you mean to—”

“I know what I mean, you slimy…” the rest was in angry Japanese.

Papa turned to Mikasa, shooting her a wink.

In her pink dress, she smiled.

“That’s it!” Mama declared, throwing her hands up and storming off to her closet. “I’m not going!”

Papa smirked, looping his tie into yet another failed attempt at a proper knot. “Honey, I’m sure we can find you something that won’t make your ass look like a three-ton mammal’s rear.”

“I hate you!”

“What about that gray sweater dress?”

“It’s dirty!”

“And the red knitted one?”

“It’s—” A gasp. “Oh, let me check that one.”

From her spot on their bed, Mikasa giggled. “Mama’s having a crisis.”

Her father had to agree.

“It’s clean!”

“That’s great, honey!” Then he mouthed to the girl, _Give her a sec._

 _Okay,_ she mouthed back. Ningyo sat on her lap, tattered hair brushed back all nice and neat, but Mikasa wouldn’t take her with them that day. She was nearly ten, almost a big girl, and big girls didn’t take dolls with them wherever they went.

Mama appeared out of the closet, cheeks flushed from the exercise of stuffing her butt into yet another small dress. “How does it look?” she asked her family, spinning on her toes.

Two mouths hung wide open.

“Holy cow,” Mikasa gaped.

“Holy shit,” Papa laughed.

“What?” asked Mama, perching her hands on her hips. “What is it?”

“You look amazing.” And she did. “A perfect ten.”

Her face shifted with skepticism, black hair thrown messily around her head. Even in her flustered state, Mama was immensely beautiful. The dress she wore clung to her frame and accentuated her curves, which may not have been conservative enough for her standards, but by the whistle Papa gave when she turned to pore over her own reflection in the mirror, rising onto tippy toes and jutting out her hip to check her rear, it was obvious that he was a big fan, at least.

“Are you sure it’s not, say, an eight?” she asked her husband.

He smiled, a twinkle in his eyes. “Would I ever lie to you?”

With a scoff, Mama surrendered, the way she always did, to his flashy grin.

“I’m sorry I called you a slimy ass eating iguana,” she pouted, adjusting his tie. Mikasa realized how small her mother looked beside her father. She was tiny, a whole head shorter than him.

“You see,” Papa cringed, choking on his wife’s rough tying. Some things are better left untranslated.”

Mama snickered, her small nose wrinkling.

And then Papa kissed her lips.

Mikasa covered Ningyo’s eyes, grimacing. “Blegh.” Old people.

Papa grimaced too. “Gross,” he groaned, licking his lips. “Carmex.”

Kisses don’t taste like chocolate.

“See, Ningyo? I told ya.”

**—o—**

The day Mikasa Ackerman discovered what Eren’s lips tasted like was the best and worst day of her life.

The sun was out and the world was cold but the sun didn’t care, it kept shining. Mama was in her red knitted dress, Papa wore a tie, and Mikasa’s pink dress and white leggings and gray boots were not as bright as the red scarf Carla had wrapped around her neck when she answered the door and grinned, “Hello!”

Mama blinked, taken aback by her enthusiasm.

“Hi,” said Papa. “We brought cake.”

“Perfect!” chirped Eren, popping out from behind his mother’s waist.

“Chocolate?” whispered Armin. Upon seeing him standing by Eren, Mikasa gasped.

“Armin!”

“Mikasa!”

They embraced. It was tight and full of squeals, their hug.

“Come in, come in!” urged Carla. So they did.

Her home smelled of food, delicious home-cooked meals Mikasa couldn’t wait to delve into. She’d eaten nothing but a muffin that day, which the girls at her dance studio would frown upon because ballerinas don’t eat carbs, but to poop with them. She was a carb-lover and proud —a good thing too, because Carla only cooked pasta.

Mikasa had never seen her more healthy, more full of life, than she was that day. Her hair was long, and hung loosely around her shoulders in mild, chocolate waves. She wore the slightest tinge of makeup, which she didn’t need, for Carla had a face angels could envy, eyes the stars dreamt about in their sleep. She was the sun indeed. Her tattoos weren't visible to Mama, whom she conversed with a great deal of the afternoon. The kids spent hours playing together, and when it was time to eat, voices were loud, plates were passed. They all ate as family.

That day was the best day of Mikasa’s life because after their bellies were full of food and chocolate cake, and Mama was helping Carla with dishes, and Grisha and Papa were laughing loudly about something only adults could understand, Armin took a potty break and Mikasa laid beside Eren on his bedroom floor, drowsy hands rubbing their bloated bellies.

“I am going to explode,” he moaned.

Mikasa groaned, far too full to muster sentences.

“Mikasa,” he said after a moment. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Do you love me?”

She craned her neck to peer at him, dark eyes wide. “What?”

“Ah, forget it.”

“Wait, no. Why do you ask?”

“I’m just curious.”

She frowned. But then her neck began to hurt from straining, so she laid her head back down. “I do,” she told him, eying the glow-in-the-dark stickers of planets that littered his ceiling. Her words resonated in the air, drifted from her mouth to his ears, to Mars and Jupiter and Saturn. “I love you the way that stars love the moon.”

“Wow, that’s deep.”

“Thank you. I read it in a book once.”

“I love you too,” Eren whispered, closing his eyes. “I love you so much that it hurts. Right here,” he tapped a finger to his sternum. “Feels like it might pop one day, and all that will be left of my heart is a big black hole. I don’t get it, Mikasa. Why does everything hurt? I love things so much that I hate them. I don’t know how to stop.”

“How to stop what?”

“Feeling.”

“Feeling isn’t a bad thing, Eren. It’s a gift to have a big heart.”

“Is it?”

“I think so. It’s how God made you.”

“I don’t know if I believe in God.”

Mikasa gawked at the ceiling, balling her small hands atop her chest, right above her heart. “How can you not?”

“How could I? Look at my mom. How can God be real when people like her are sick, when there’s kids our age dying and wars going on?”

His words brought along her silence. At a loss, she eyed the shaft of afternoon light that shone in from his window and painted his walls with a buttery glow. God is just like that, Mikasa thought, like a perpetual shaft of sunlight. You must open your heart, and just as light pours in through windows, God will pour into your soul.

“God is real,” she muttered, seeking Eren’s hand. Her fingers brushed the side of his palm. His skin was warm. “God is everywhere, Eren. In the trees, in the grass. You don’t need to believe in something for it to be real. Mama tells me so.”

This made him think. His hand twitched at her touch, a flutter of life at her fingertips. Their breathing was all either of them heard for a small while. And then Eren turned to her and said, “Can I kiss you?”

“Say what.”

“A kiss!” He rose and sat on his heels, his eyes alight. “Let’s try it.”

“Really?” Mikasa rose from the floor too, kneeling in front of him. “Why do you want to kiss?”

“I wonder what it feels like.”

“Hasn’t Auntie ever kissed you on the lips?”

“Nope.”

“Your papa?”

“Nope.”

“Dang.”

Eren ran a hand through his hair, sighing. “I would ask Armin, but I don’t think he would like that very much.”

Her eyes darted to his guitar, strewn lazily across his bed. Why couldn’t he ask her this the way they do in movies? Maybe sing her a song, strum away at the strings that reek of rust and age in an effort to tug at the ones of her heart, lure her lips closer to his and seal the deal, discover what both of them have been wondering? They’re too young to have their first kiss, but by what laws? In fairy tales, the prince never asks, he just does it. He just grabs her and kisses and revives the princess from her slumber and rescues her from her cell and her fate and herself and—

He kissed her.

He grabbed her shoulders. Pulled her close. Kissed her.

It was a loud, wet smeck. Nothing like what they show in the movies, or describe in storybooks. Lies, she’d been fed all her life. This quick, sloppy, lousy kiss was her new truth. Everything changed. All it took was one whole mississippi, and everything changed.

“I’m sorry,” Eren whispered, his breath on her lips, glowing.

“How could you?” Mikasa gasped. “You just—”

“I’m sorry.”

“You just stole my first kiss.”

“I’m sorry!”

“It’s gone forever. You took it. It’s gone.”

“Agh!” Eren’s head fell to his hands. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I mess everything up, oh God, I’m sorry! Please don’t hate me, please!”

Whether the prickling sensations on her skin came from rage, or elation, she did not know. Her thoughts, her feelings, were all a garbled wreck.

 _I love you like the stars love the moon_.

And she did. She did. And Eren loved her too—not in the way that adults love each other, but in the way that nature loves the sun, the way even snow willingly melts under its heat in calm surrender. Some things are simply what they are. A kiss is just a kiss. Love is just love. Friendship is just friendship. All individual, all the same. His lips on hers, no sparks, no magic, just skin pressed to skin and chocolate cake in their breaths.

Mikasa smiled.

Eren still had his face in his hands. He was so ashamed. She smiled.

“You taste like chocolate,” she said. Green, teary eyes peered up at her.

“Huh?”

“Chocolate,” Mikasa simpered, covering her mouth. “I can’t believe it. You actually taste like chocolate!”

“I do?”

“Yes!”

Eren bit his lip, and she almost wanted him to kiss her again, just to make sure she wasn't imagining it.

Chocolate.

Kisses really did taste like chocolate!

“That was weird,” Eren decided after a moment, to which Mikasa vehemently agreed.

“It was.”

“Let’s never do that again.”

“Let’s not.”

“Yeah.”

Then they laughed. Both of them. Giggling. Non-stop. How funny it was that something so fantasized about was such a bore in reality, as simple as blowing your nose, or pinching your arm, or eating ice cream. They wiped their mouths with the backs of their hands, and were about to venture out of his room to find Armin when somebody knocked on the door.

“Eren.” It was his dad. “Can I speak with you?”

“Sure,” he murmured, sparing Mikasa a quick glance. “Be right back.”

“Okay.”

He stood up. He left. The door closed, and she fell back onto the floor, sighing, her tummy doing flippity-flops. Her hands found her cheeks, hot and vibrant and the color of her dress. 

“Best day ever,” she breathed to herself.

But then Carla knocked.

“Mikasa?” The door creaked open slightly. “You in here?”

“Yes?”

“Can I have a word with you, hun?”

“Sure.”

Slowly, Auntie made her way inside. Mikasa swallowed, rising to her feet, dusting off the skirt of her dress. Maybe Carla knew that she’d just kissed her son. Maybe she was coming in to scold her, or praise her. She was prepared for everything, anything. The best, the worst.

It was when Carla said, “I need to ask you for a favor. I’m going away soon,” and Mikasa asked “Where?” and she said “Somewhere very far away, and I will not be back,” that she quickly learned that there are some things in life you cannot prepare for, only endure. Like scrapes and cuts. You hold your breath, you wait, you bear through it. And you heal, eventually. 

But when Carla asked Mikasa to take good care of Eren while she was gone, eventually felt eons and eons away. She then saw that the best day of her life was also the worst. The high of having her first kiss quickly left her. She couldn’t taste the chocolaty after-taste of Eren’s lips on hers, or the joy that had wrung her belly and squeezed out giggles. Suddenly, pain was all she knew. Sadness was all she knew. Happiness faded and the sky turned black, no sun left in it.

“I promise, Auntie.”

“Good.”

When they embraced, Mikasa inhaled the woman’s scent and memorized it. It was what home smelled like: like laundry detergent and morphine lollipops, and the subtle perfume that clung to the fabric of her red scarf. Red. Like blood and roses and the glorious bursts sunsets paint across the skies. That was how Carla left her, like a flame that burned too bright, too beautifully, and thus burned out too quick.

**—o—**

The Most Important Lesson of All:

One cannot, and this means _never_ , save anyone from themselves.

**—o—**

“Armin, where’s Eren?”

“Huh?”

“He wasn’t at the bust stop, at our bench. I’m worried.”

“You didn’t hear?”

“Didn’t hear what?”

“Mikasa, listen.”

“What? What is it?”

“Eren’s gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s going to be gone for a little while.”

“Why? What happened?”

“I don't know how to…”

“What? How to what? Please, tell me.”

“I'm sorry.

“Tell me, Armin.”

“This is why I needed you to be his friend. You’ve made him so happy, Mikasa. These past few months, he’s been—”

“Armin! Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I’ve… Gosh, Mikasa.”

“Please. Please. Where is he?”

“He’s at the hospital.”

“Why?”

“His mother died.”

“She…”

“I'm sorry.”

“So she’s…?”

“She’s dead.”

She’s dead.

She’s dead.

She’s dead.

She’s

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's really only two chapters in this fic that ever made me cry as i wrote them, and this one is one of them. it's so painful. i know this is a story of co-dependency and trauma and healing but oof. i must admit, tears were shed editing this. 
> 
> i am trying to be better at responding to comments (have always sucked ass at this), so please feel free to leave share your thoughts. feedback keeps the updates coming, it really does.
> 
> thank you, and see you next week ♡


	13. Same Old Demons and Some New Friends

Hitch’s got a crush, which is definitely not a good thing. Nope. Not at all.

You see, she doesn’t really know how or when the hell it happened, but the worst part is that the subject of her affection is a loud, chortling, spit-sputtering, walking sack of overbearing passion with a clandestine ass fetish and a thing for pizza with extra cheese. Now, try to guess who it is. Just try.

Yep. You got it.

Eren Jaeger isn’t the type of guy you wanna be crushing on for a plethora of reasons. 

First of all, he’s too damn attractive for his own good. That pretty face of his has girls falling for him left and right but the dumbass rarely ever notices. Seriously, you will never meet anyone more dense. He can’t take a hint. Don’t ever try to flirt with him because he’ll have no idea what you’re doing. He’ll peek at the breasts you’ve pushed up to your fucking neck and raise his eyebrows, open his mouth to say something but instead of commenting on your efforts he’ll clear his throat and look away. Every. Single. Time. It drives Hitch crazy.

Second, he’s too kind-hearted. The thing about him is that he can’t help it! He’d be dashing, if he wasn’t such a moron. Still, when he sees that you’re in need, he sprints right to your aid. So that when he’s helping you carry heavy shit up the stairs, or letting you stay over at his place because the short trek to your own apartment is too cold, or he’s throwing your favorite candy on your lap with “I saw this on my way home and thought of you,” it’s all simply because he’s a good person, nothing personal. It’s how he is. Kind. Thoughtful. And that too drives her absolutely bonkers, because it’s all the things you  _ want  _ him to be. You  _ want  _ him to be perfect. And he is. Ew. He so is. 

Third thing is, he’ll worry you half to fucking death and not even know it. He’ll come back from a night out with a black eye and bloody lip and say it’s nothing. He won’t eat right for days and shut you out until he’s feeling like talking again and Sasha’s pounding on his door begging that he let her feed him. One day, he’s fine. The next, he won’t answer texts or phone calls and he’ll disappear into his bedroom, binge-read entire sagas like a madman trying to find himself within the pages, and he’ll come out questioning why you’re worried when he was “Fine, Hitch. Stop overreacting.” He won’t sleep. For days, he’ll stay up until his eyes are droopy and red and he’ll refuse to take any type of sleeping medicine because he’s all against medication for some reason only God understands.

But the worst part? He’s a man full of secrets. He’s honest, very honest. But sometimes, you’ll catch glimpses of his scars and wonder why he has them. And he won’t tell you. He’ll brush you off. He’ll make a joke or change the topic or straight up pretend he didn’t hear you ask him anything at all. Eventually, you learn to ignore them. But they’re always there, and you always wonder why. 

There’ll be times when he stays over that Hitch still has to wake him in the middle of his sleep because he’s whimpering. Even Sasha and Annie will take turns watching over him if it’s really bad. Once, years ago, when his night terrors were very frequent, she’d tried to wake him and, in his thrashing, he’d hit her hard across the face. Eren was so devastated. That was the first time Hitch ever saw him cry. 

Actually, no. You know what? Scratch that. 

The  _ actual _ worst part about crushing on Eren is that you are guaranteed that he will never like you back. Never. His heart’s detached, despite how sensitive he is. There’s parts of him that are utterly unreachable, and in all the years that Hitch has known him, never once has she seen him fall in love. He’s dated, had flings, even set his heart out on loving people back the way they love him. But he always ends up bored, or disinterested, or staring at the text messages on his phone like he doesn’t understand.

It’s heartbreaking, really. He has no idea how wonderful he is. And he’s smart. God, he’s smart. You should see him when he’s talking about something he’s really passionate about. How his eyes burn, how the book he’s telling you about comes to life in his fervent retelling, how the constellations he’s so happily explaining take shape in his smile and make his teeth glint like stars. You should see how caring he is with the children he mentors, how he understands them, how they bring out an innocence in him he’s long since lost. How good he is to the girls, to Sasha and Annie and Christa and Ymir even when all they do is bust his balls, how every guy Sasha’s ever dated has been scared to shit of him and known not to wrong her even once. He knows all these random words in other languages and even taught himself French and how to play onerous guitar solos and how to draw the most accurate still life―all out of sheer boredom! And dedication! How does he even do all that shit? Like the scar on his palm, it’s a secret.

Hitch is fucked. Quite literally.

She’s got a crush, and she doesn’t know how to control it. And every day, it only gets worse. Petty aspects of him like the fact that he’s a belly sleeper and a blanket hog and that he’s got freckles on his right shoulder that trickle down to his back make her happy―and not in a good way either. Ugh.

Sometimes, he smiles and Hitch doesn’t know whether she wants to punch him in the face or kiss him. Sometimes, he mocks her to piss her off and she doesn’t know whether to glare at him or lick up the entire left side of his face. And of course, he’s got no fucking clue of her growing feelings for him. He doesn’t know that she likes to stare at him while he sleeps, that sometimes she finds his shirt on her floor and brings it to her nose to inhale the traces him, that she honestly regrets the night they both got plastered and she took him to her room and fucked him because the next morning he’d felt horrible and guilty but no, Hitch had to go right on ahead and play her “It’s no big deal, dumbass” card because yes, it  _ was  _ a big deal to her. It was a  _ huge  _ deal. She’d told him that they could do it casually from then on, that it didn’t have to mean anything, that they’d been friends for long enough that it shouldn’t change things between them―except that hello, yes, she kind of really cared about him and everything had changed!

She’s a liar. A stinking, filthy liar and she knows it too.

She’ll never admit that she wonders what being lovers would be like. Because his heart already beats so strong and his skin burns feverish and his breaths rush out of him with might but still, Hitch is a selfish girl, and she wonders whether making love instead of having sex would be any different. Their kisses are brief and she wishes they were longer. They already fuck enough days in the week but she wants more. More of him. More of this. More of him wanting her.

But she’ll never get it. Like, it’s so obvious. Duh.

And lately, he’s been spacing out a lot. Ever since that Mikasa girl showed up, it’s been happening. His lazy knocks on her door are still the same, soft and sure and languid. And he’s still the same when she greets him and finds him standing there, all tall and glorious and grinning at whatever snarky shit she throws at him that day. And their meetings are still the same. And she still counts his touches and his breaths until it’s time to count the seconds to bliss, until it’s pain settling in and the empty pang of dissatisfaction and he’s lying on the floor beside her with his pants pulled down his thighs trying to catch his breath and that’s also the same except that now he’s quiet with another woman’s image in his mind. 

And that, you see, is different.

“Hey,” Hitch raps, snapping her fingers in front of his face. Sweat sticks her bangs to her forehead, her bare back clammy against the floor. They smell like sex and disappointment, the two of them do. “Hey, Fabio.”

He swats her hand away. “You really should stop calling me that.”

“What’s itching you?” She rolls onto her stomach and props herself up on her elbows, the side of her forearm touching his bicep. “You’ve been staring at the ceiling for a while now.”

“Nothing’s itching me,” he blinks, still staring up ahead. Hitch sighs at his lie.

“Whatever,” and she’s about to get away from him when he reaches over and plucks a fleck of lint out of her hair, a sudden show of affection that freezes her. “What was that?”

“Fluff,” he says, blowing it away from the tip of his finger. “I dunno.”

She stares at him. And he doesn’t see, no, of course not. His eyes are closed, and he has one hand on his belly and the other prowling up the back of her thigh, the backs of his fingers brushing the bare skin under the hem of her skirt and it’s such a silly little gesture, and it means nothing to him and that’s the sad part because to Hitch it means the world.

She traces one of the scars on his chest with her finger, something she knows he doesn’t like. But it gets his attention enough for her to ask, “What’s wrong?”

And now, he’s the one that’s staring. His eyes look sad and blue and his jaw locks.

“Tell me,” she whispers, tracing the shell of his ear. “You know you can tell me anything.”

“It’s just… It’s complicated.”

“And…?”

“Private.”

Hitch’s eyes shrink. “You’re kidding me.” He’s not. “Eren, I’ve sucked your dick. How are you talking to me about private?”

Despite himself, he laughs.

“Tell me,” she persists, slapping him on the arm when he cups his face with both hands and groans into them. “Tell me, tell me, tell me. Or am I gonna have to bully it out of you? Don’t make me bully it out of you, Jaeger. You know I’ll do it if I have to.”

“Ugh, okay, fine.” Her catty eyes crinkle. Eren scowls at her grin. “Promise me you won’t laugh.”

“I won’t laugh.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise!”

He’s silent for a moment. She eyes the beads of sweat that glisten on the hollow junction of his collarbones, thinks of where they were just moments ago: sitting on her couch watching  _ Fight Club  _ and passing a Budweiser back and forth to take respective sips. Hitch doesn’t remember who’d initiated what, who playfully shoved who and who started wrestling with the other, who kissed first and brought them here. His hair’s a mess, all wild and tousled by her hands, gaze fixed on her back, following the slow line his knuckles draw up her spine. It’s at times like this that Hitch could close her eyes and pretend that they’re decent people, losing themselves in one another without a fault in the world. 

“It’s about Mikasa,” he admits. And suddenly, she’s not feeling all that glorious anymore.

“Ah.”

“I’m worried, Hitch.”

She sighs out of her nose, running a hand through her sweaty hair. “About?”

“Her fiancé.” His hand stops cold on her back. “I don’t know, I’m just… I don’t think she’s happy with him.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Many things. She’s lonely. I can see it in her eyes. I feel like she’s not herself at all anymore.”

“People change, Eren.”

His eyes meet hers. He’s frowning. “I know, but she shouldn’t be what she is now. She’s this sad, helpless little thing and that’s not the Mikasa I’ve known my whole life. It just… It breaks my heart.”

“Poor girl,” Hitch yawns, rubbing her temples. Gosh, she needs a cigarette. Bad.

“Yeah,” sighs the man beside her, with his pants still halfway down his legs and bare ass against her floor. She smirks at his present state, and is surprised when he doesn’t inch away from her when her hand caresses the side of his face, a gesture reserved only for lovers and not for… Well, whatever they are.

“Annie told me that you spoke with her,” she says, thumbing his lower lip. “So she’s your girlfriend now?”

“For now, yeah.”

“I don’t know how you managed it.”

He snorts. “Neither do I.”

For a moment, his eyes remain on hers, and she delves into the colors of his irises. They’re green, like her own eyes, but where hers are soft and hazel, his are bright and mixed with blue. An impossible hue that can only be described as what happens when a forest meets the sky. If the tops of trees were to mix in with the heavens and all of nature would fuse and twist like paint instead of end on separate points, his eyes would reflect the outcome.

“Anyways,” she grunts, perching her chin on the palm of her hand. “So about this plan of yours. What’s the deal?”

“I’m gonna try my best to see how she’s doing. If she’s happy, then I’ll leave her alone. If she’s not… Well…”

“You’ll try to win her back?”

“No. I haven’t decided yet.” There’s Eren Jaeger for ya. Always gotta be the hero.

God, it pisses her off.

“Can I ask you something, Eren?”

“Sure,” he hisses, fidgeting on his back. “But make it quick, my ass is cold.”

She smiles, but it’s quick to fade. “Do you have feelings for her?”

Silence.

Then:

“I should go.” 

And he pretends that he didn’t even hear her.

“Of course,” Hitch scoffs, dropping her head defeatedly. He rises off the floor and she can hear him pulling his pants up, his zipper closing, belt buckle clinking, all these little signs that he’s about to go. It makes her chest hurt, it really does.

Her nails scrape the hardwood floor, following the line of a small ridge. She hears him sniffling behind her, looking for his shirt. It always ends this way: him removing himself from her apartment, erasing all the hints that indicate he was there, save for the condom in her trash can and his smell on her skin. It’s as if he never even fucked her.

“Oh!” he blurts out suddenly. “I almost forgot. She’s coming to Sasha’s New Year’s party.”

“She is?”

“Yes. Please, all I ask is that you’re nice to her. That’s all I ask.”

Hitch rolls her eyes, not even bothering to turn over and look at him. “I’m not making any promises.”

“Hitch.”

“No.”

“You’re gonna scare her off!”

“Fuck you. She isn’t my problem, Jaeger.”

“Are you serious right now?”

“Yes! Why should I give a shit about how she feels? She’s your issue, not mine.”

He’s silent for a moment, and she can feel his glare on her back. When he speaks, his tone is much too quiet for her liking.

“Fine,” so soft. 

She hears him get his keys and pull his shirt on, walk briskly to the door and wrench it open. He’s pissed. He slams the door shut so hard the floor shakes.

God. Drama queen.

Hitch takes her time standing up and picking her blouse off the floor. She walks over to the phone. With a sigh, she calls his phone number. She waits.

Two rings later and,  _ “What?” _

“Alright, idiot. I’ll do it.”

_ “Do what?” _

“It.”

_ “What, Hitch?” _

She grits the words through her teeth, nostrils flaring. “I’ll be nice to Mikasa.”

A pause.

_ “Really?” _

“Yes,” she huffs, scratching her nose. “God. In fact, I’ll even take it a step further. You say she’s lonely so…”

_ “So…?” _

“So…” Ugh. No. Please, don’t make her say it.

_ “So what, Hitch?” _

“So… I’ll try to be her… her… um… her f-f-f… f… f-friend _. _ ” It burns.

His laugh is so worth it, though.  _ “Will you really?” _

“I hope she likes dick jokes, because yes.”

He hangs up.

“Eren?”

No answer.

Before Hitch can connect the handset to its base, the front door springs open and a cool breeze attacks her face. She’s about to take in a breath to speak, but Eren grabs her cheeks and plants a hard kiss on her lips, pulling away with a smile so wide that his dimple dents in all the way.

“Thank you,” he beams. Flushed, Hitch slaps him on the chest.

“You’re ridiculous.”

**—o—**

Soap suds creep between the spaces of her fingers, clinging to the forever-chipping nail polish on her nails. Mikasa’s unnaturally calm today. Jean didn’t have to work, so they spent the day lounging about and playing with Jiji, talking about movies and his job and whatever else. 

After laying on the couch for hours, whispering about nothing as if they have any sorts of secrets to keep, taking naps in each other’s arms, groaning when their arms went numb or when Jean would kick Mikasa’s leg in his sleep or she would drool or Jiji would hop onto the two of them and use them as his own personal bed, they’d decided to make dinner. Since Jean was the cook, Mikasa was the one responsible for washing dishes. And despite her objections, he insisted that he’d help.

So she washes, and he dries, and one would think that they’d have less dishes to clean considering that it’s just the two of them, but nope. Somehow, whenever Jean cooks, he manages to create a mountain of dirty dishes. It’s incredible. Mikasa’s dragging lazy circles on a plate with the sponge when she feels him press a kiss to her temple.

“You’re humming,” he grins. She hadn’t known that she was.

“I’m just happy.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.”

“Well, then I’m happy too.” Another kiss, on the lips this time.

“You taste like marinara sauce,” she snorts.

“So do you.”

“Mmm.” One more kiss. Another. Two more and then his hand is on her waist, but instead of pulling her closer, he nudges her away.

“We should finish,” spews the smirk on his lips. He nods at the dishes she’s still cleaning and smiles at her pout. “We’re almost done.”

When they kiss again, it’s well after all the plates have been washed and put away, and Jean’s changing into more presentable clothes for his meeting later with his father. She offers to help him with his tie, which she uses as a means to pull him closer, lure his mouth to hers. 

Seconds tick away on the clock by their nightstand, and her breath is tangled in her throat by the time he’s laving kisses down her neck, eliciting a lightness from her feet that makes her feel faint. He holds her steady, hands to her waist, hers on his shoulders.

“Jean,” she gasps, bereft of air.

“Hah?”

Her lips find his ear, offer a whisper: “Come to bed.”

“It’s six o’clock,” he chuckles.

“That’s not what I mean.”

He groans, and it’s not a sound she wants to hear. It’s frustrated. He pulls back to look at her, and she has to fight the urge to ram his head back down to her neck. Mikasa sighs out of equal frustration.

“Baby, I’d love to. But I have to leave in like ten minutes.”

“Can’t you be a little late?”

“Can’t. You know how the boss is with his meetings.”

“You’re only going out for drinks.”

“Yeah, but it’s Dad. You know how he is.”

It hits her how needy she’s being, how whiny she sounds. Embarrassed, she fixes the fallen strap of her top back over her shoulder, giving his tie a final tug to secure it into place. He makes a choked noise. Good.

“What?” Jean frowns, loosening the tie’s grip. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“No.” He brings a hand up to cradle her face, passing the pad of his thumb over the thin arch of her eyebrow. “What is it? Talk to me.”

Her plea is so small, she doubts he even hears her. “I just wish you’d stay home at least once.”

“I stayed home all day today.”

“I know.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

So many things are the problem, Jean. So many things.

For one, your mother sucks. As do your friends. They’re all horrible. Nasty, nasty people they are. And your fiancée rarely ever sees you anymore. You haven’t made love to her in ages because you’re always either too drunk or too tired and she misses your warmth and your arms hugged tight around her and your skin and you, just you in general. She misses you so much.

So what is it? Why do you reject her? Why do you brush her off? 

A crease pops out between her eyebrows. She scowls at a wrinkle on his shirt, and maybe it’s wrong of her to think these things, for she knows Jean is a busy man and what they’re going through right now is just an interval, a respite before their life together picks back up again. 

But she’d be lying if she said she doesn’t yearn for his hands to linger in places they’re so quick to leave these days, to have him console old wounds when they randomly reopen instead of having to treat them on her own. They’re partners. Lovers. Husband and wife, almost. And why doesn’t it feel that way at all?

Because he’s hardly ever home anymore, she finds herself memorizing the sound of his voice, the prickle of his stubble, the softness of his hair and his touch because she goes days without experiencing them sometimes. It makes her wonder if things have truly changed for the better after moving here. Because once upon a time, he couldn’t bear to live a day without her, shooting her messages and phone calls that lasted hours even if they were mostly just him talking and her throwing in a word or two to show that she was listening. And he’d show up randomly at her home with flowers because their scent reminded him of her. And she’d catch him staring at her or smiling quietly after she’d speak, as if he were proud of himself for getting a word out of her. And he’d blushed and stammered and asked her to be his girlfriend, and he’d gaped at her when she’d said yes. And he’d been so chaste when he linked their hands together that one afternoon at the beach. And he’d been so careful when he’d first brought his lips to hers after a night out at the movies. And he’d asked for her consent that night she let him stay over, closing his eyes as he sat beside her on the bed and she took off her bra, not even cracking one eye open until she’d held his cheek and told him that it’s okay to look. And he’d cried when she’d agreed to marry him. And he’d promised her a good life when she said she’d follow him to this city. And he’s the only other man she’s let into her life, her body, her heart, ever. And now things are different. And she honestly can’t explain why.

“I’m sorry,” Mikasa apologizes, as if he had any insight into her thoughts. “I miss you, that’s all.”

“I miss you too.” This time, he’s the one that grabs her face and locks their lips together.

“Two minutes,” she sighs into his mouth. He laughs.

“Are you asking for a quickie?”

“I’ll take what I can get.”

“You deserve much more than that. I’ll try to make things brief with the old man, get back as soon as possible. Okay?” Of course. Of course it’s okay. It’s always okay. When hasn’t it been? “Hey,” he whispers, cupping her chin. “I love you.”

She repeats the words. Nine letters, three syllables, five vowels.

“I love you.”

Her fingers hook around his belt and pull him to her. Words are trampled in his mouth when her tongue invades the startled slit of his lips, a hum churning in her throat as her teeth tug at his lower lip. She lets it jerk back into place and smirks at the hazy look in his eyes, flattening his tie against his chest and letting her hands stay there.

“Have fun tonight,” she croons. When he dives to kiss her again, she pulls back and shakes her head. “We can’t, remember?” His hands frame her hips, thumbs denting skin through clothing, rubbing circles on her hip bones and it feels  _ so good.  _ She takes them in her own hands, guides them back lower, lower, until they’re sinking past the hem of her skirt and up the backs of her thighs to grope her ass. His flicker over her features. She bites a quiet moan against his lips, pressing herself against him. “You’ve got to go. To that meeting.”

“Fuck,” he grunts. For a flicker of time, she’s winning. He gives her ass cheeks a firm squeeze, and she’s about to say something when his hand leaves her rear and finds that eager spot between her legs.

“Jean―”

“Wait for me.” He’s grinding circles on her through the fabric of her panties. “Tonight,” he says, grinding slower. “Wait until tonight. I’ll make you mine. I promise.”

“I’m already yours,” she breathes, eyelids fluttering. “Jean, I want―”

“Me?” He smiles, warm palms crawling up her body, eliciting a sigh. She throws her head back and feels his lips graze her neck, his fingers tug down the straps of her blouse past her shoulders. His kisses are faint, teeth careful not to nip too hard so that not a single mark is left on her. He inhales her scent, plants a kiss on her bare clavicle.

“I want you,” she musters, her voice shaky. Small.

“I want you too.”

He licks a trail up her neck all the way to her jaw, the damp path he carves on her skin igniting. Her breathing deepens, dappled by a whine when his hands frame her breasts and push them up so that his mouth can reach them. It takes her a moment to realize that her back’s met their dresser. Her hands curve over the edge, nails rasping on the wood. 

Her heart’s pounding in her chest, beating on his lips before they find her throat and murmur, “I can’t wait to taste you.” His hands are everywhere. His voice is everywhere. All she hears is her own breathing. She bites her lower lip, rubs her thighs together to quell the yearning, but the low drawl of his voice isn’t helping. “To watch you try to hold in your little noises, squirming on your back. Right here,” he taps her chest, “turns this pretty shade of pink. It’s my favorite. And your cheeks get all red. Your eyes go dark and heavy. Your breathless voice… It’s so quiet.” He smiles. “Until you scream, that is.”

“I don’t scream,” she protests weakly.

“Liar.”

“I don’t!”

“Oop. You’re screaming.”

“Jean!” she laughs, thumping her fists on his chest. He laughs too, pecking the pert tip of her nose.

“I love your laugh.”

She pushes his hands off of her body, ignoring his protesting mewl. “See you tonight, then.”

As she walks away, she can practically feel his eyes burning through her clothes. Her glory would’ve been longer lived, had he not muttered as she was halfway out the door, “‘Kasa?”

She spins, raising her brows at him. Her cheeks flushed rosy, shoulders still bare. 

“Yes?”

“I think you should go to that party.”

A pause.

Stunned.

Then, her stomach drops.

“Wh… What party?” There’s a cold prick in her chest. She plummets from the high of their teasing, frantic heart beating in her throat.

“Sasha’s New Year’s party,” her fiancé clarifies, much to her horror. “It would be fun.”

“Jean…”

“She told me she ran into you the other night on your way back.” He pauses. Thinking. Serious. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I…” Shit. How could she think he’d go this long without finding out? She should’ve told him. She should’ve mentioned it sooner. What if he doesn’t trust her now? What if… God, and how he’s looking at her. Is he hurt? He’s hurt. 

“I didn’t think it was important,” she says.  _ Please don’t be upset. Please.  _ “I was going to tell you…”

“That’s okay,” he smiles meekly, eyes falling to the floor. Suddenly, he’s not this powerful, tall man, but a vulnerable, quiet creature. “You should go.”

She’s silent for a moment, gauging his reaction. “Really?”

“Yeah, it could be good for you. You know, get out for once. Make some new friends.”

“Right.”

“I… I was thinking, you know. Since I’ll be at work, that way you won’t be all on your own. Plus, I know Sasha will take good care of you.”

“So you…” She clears her throat. “You don’t mind?”

“Of course not,” Jean laughs. “Why would I? I’ll pick you up when I get out of work. Sounds good?” 

She nods, more out of plain shock than anything. He’s awfully calm, but what did Mikasa expect him to be in the first place? Furious? Sad? Does she not know him well enough by now to predict his reactions?

The floor creaks below his feet as he approaches her. She thinks, for a brief moment, that perhaps he’ll take her and finish off what they started, remind her of his position in her life. But instead, his hand finds hers and he plays with the engagement ring on her finger, twisting it left and right.

In this lighting and proximity, he looks so young. She brings a finger to his lips, just to feel them, just to feel that he’s still here. And he’s so quick to kiss it. Of course he is. It’s Jean. Her tender, loving Jean. She knows him. She knows him.

It’s just like him to say, “I’ll cook you a big dinner. We can take a bath, light some candles, put some music on. We’ll have our own little party at home with Mr. Pringles.”

She smiles. Warmth spreads within her chest, melting the cold spike that had worried her earlier. “That sounds great.”

He kisses her forehead. “Perfect.”

Again, Mikasa is halfway gone when he utters, “Um… baby?”

She stops, re-appearing by the door. “Hmm?”

But he doesn’t speak. His mouth opens for a moment, then falls shut. He shakes his head, swallows whatever he was just about to say to her.

“Nothing. Never mind.”

**—o—**

_ Brr… Brr… Brra… _

Okay. You can do it, Mikasa. Just press the button. Press the thing. Just… bring… your… finger… right… on… there… and… press!

_ Brrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap!!!! _

Wonderful. Now everyone knows she’s here.

_ Brraaaaaaaaaap!!! _

Just for good measure.

Okay, jeans. Eren told her to wear jeans. So she’s wearing jeans. And a shirt. Yeah. She’s wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt and her scarf. The red one. Red. Like her fingertips. Why isn’t she wearing gloves? What an idiot. She should’ve brought gloves. It’s cold. There’s no snow, but it’s cold. Her nipples are hard. They hurt. Shit. Press the button.

_ Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap!!! _

One minute. If Eren doesn’t answer in one minute, then she’s breaking down the door. She can do it. One kick. She may be skinny as a twig now but her legs are still strong. Hell yeah. Crush a man’s head between her thighs. Not that anyone’s head has been between her thighs lately. Sigh. Anyway, no. That’s not important. One minute. One. Never mind. Hurting nipples. Press the button. Go.

_ Brap! Brap! Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap!!! _

Hurry up, Eren! Think of her frostbitten fingers! Think of her shivering! Think of her nipples!

_ “Yeah?”  _ It’s his voice. Sleepy and groggy and a little slow, but it’s Eren’s voice that breaks through the intercom.

“Eren?” she shivers, his name reviving on her tongue. She blames the cold for her trouble breathing.

_ “Oh, hey,”  _ he croaks, with a livelier lilt in his voice.  _ “Mikasa. How are you?” _

“Cold.”

_ “Aw, I’m sorry.”  _ He’s quiet for a moment. And then,  _ “Wait! Shit, right. Hold on. I’ll open the door for you.” _

She smiles, fixing the scarf around her neck so that it covers her nose. And she waits. Breathing through the fabric. Inhaling her own scent on her clothes.

God, Eren _._ He probably just woke up. What time is it? She glances down at her wristwatch. It’s a little after two. Yeah, he most definitely just woke up.

But when the door flies open, it’s a different set of bright eyes and wild, tousled hair that greets her.

“Welcome!”

“Oh,” Mikasa pulls the scarf down from her face. “Sasha.”

“It’s so good to see you!” the woman chirps, glancing down at her jeans. Despite her cheery tone, her face falls. “Did you… Um, did you bring clothes?”

“Clo―” Mikasa shakes her head. “Clothes?”

“Yeah, silly! Clothes! For the party!”

“Well, no. I didn’t.”

“Then what’re you gonna wear?”

“Um…” Mikasa extends her arms at her sides, presenting herself. “This?”

Sasha’s eyes fall to her jeans again. She frowns even deeper. Scowls, really. “Oh, no, honey. That won’t do.”

Bemused lips part to protest, but then a voice appears behind them.

“Shit,” it says. Mikasa doesn’t need to wait for Sasha to spin out of the way to know it’s Eren.

And it is.

And she sees him.

And everything is perfectly still. His eyes. Sasha’s. Mikasa’s.

Butterflies dance in her belly, tug at her gut.

Something sings.

_ Go on. _

So she follows. Takes a step, crosses the threshold into his apartment building. Dust particles float in the air and shimmer like snow crystals. Some crunch underfoot, sticking to the soles of her boots. Her cheeks are cold, thawing with a ruddiness that suggests the flush of embarrassment. She’s been here before, in this very spot, in this very position. Everything is different. Everything’s the same. Everything is silent, save for Sasha’s sudden burst, “Jaeger! Did you tell Mikasa to wear jeans for tonight?”

He rubs the heel of his palm on his right eye. His hair’s a wreck. Clothes ruffled from tossing around in his sleep. Voice hoarse, croaky. “Yeah, why?”

“Men,” Sasha tells Mikasa. “They’re so clueless.”

“You know, I’m standing right here.” He waves a hand over his face, squinting at her. “I can hear everything you’re saying.”

Mikasa smiles.

That’s when he looks at her.

“Good!” Sasha chirps, then snatches her right arm in one swift motion, linking it through hers. “I’ll be borrowing her for a bit. Is that okay?”

Mikasa realizes that she’s still smiling, and it’s hard to stop when his clouded gaze clings to hers, when his sleepy mouth curls into a smile.

“She’s all yours,” he says.

Sasha’s shriek is loud enough to make them both cringe. “Sweet! We’re gonna have so much fun, Mikasa. I just know it!” She goes to whisk her away into her apartment, but Eren protests before they can make it to the door.

“Wait!” They stop, turn. He barely whispers, “Hey.”

He’s talking to Mikasa. Only Mikasa. 

“Hello,” she breathes, her arm still trapped in Sasha’s. He’s standing on the stairs, looking so disheveled that it makes her laugh. Her voice is jittery and insecure, thrashing about in her throat, much like her heartbeat. It beats faster, faster―and maybe his does too, because he flattens a hand on his chest as if trying to calm it.

“How are you?” Eren asks her. She inflates, something bright and colorful filling her lungs.

“I’m good. You?”

“Good.” He swallows, adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “Just woke up.”

“Oh.” A smile. “I can tell.”

“Yeah. I didn’t sleep much.” 

They stare at one another. Both take in an inhale, but it’s Mikasa’s voice that breaks the silence.

“Are you excited for tonight?”

A pause.

“Oh, yeah. You?”

Another.

“Nervous.”

“Don’t be. You’ll be fine.”

Silence again. Then it’s Eren’s voice.

“How’s uh… Jean, is it?”

“Yes. He’s at work.”

“Of course.”

She sighs, her pulse on her lips. “Did you have your coffee yet?”

“Not yet.”

“You should do that.”

“Yeah, I will.”

They both laugh. Nervous. 

“Okay,” Mikasa utters, not knowing what else to say. He’s still staring. She doesn’t mind.

A second.

Two. 

Three.

Four seconds just standing there. And they would’ve spent more if it wasn’t for Sasha’s sudden exclamation:

“Welp! Super duper! Let’s go! See ya!”

That’s when the world shifts and Mikasa is tugged into a foreign setting, Sasha’s apartment a rude awakening from the subtle moment Eren and her just shared. Her gaze no longer holds the colors of the sky, instead now gawks at a pair of big, brown eyes that question, “Alright. Too much?”

Mikasa stammers, shocked. “I’m… Too much what?”

“I had to put up a convincing act for Eren,” Sasha explains, crinkling her nose. “He’s worried that we won’t be friendly enough to help you branch out. But now I’m thinking that I overdid it.”

Mikasa nods, admitting, “A bit.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Darn.” Sasha chews on her lip, thinking. She tilts her head to the side. “How did Jean react to you coming here?”

“He’s alright with it.”

“Good. I told him I ran into you in the middle of the street. Not once did I mention Mr. Bright Eyes up there.” She nods to where they left Eren standing outside, and Mikasa does a poor job of concealing her sigh of relief.

“Thank you.”

“It’s alright. Jean is my friend, but so is Eren. And if there’s one thing I know about that fruit fucker is that he’s a good guy, and he cares about you. I can tell. Any friend of his is a friend of mine.”

“Thank you,” she repeats. She doesn’t know what else to say to her after that.

They’re still standing by the door. Mikasa’s eyes stray to the living room, yearning to go in, or even back out to Eren with his bedhead and sleepy eyes and sleepy voice and sleepy smile. Something’s changed between them. She can feel it. There’s an… ease that wasn’t there before. A comfort. Just thinking about it makes her flush.

Oh, gosh. She’s smiling again.

“I just… I get this vibe, you know?” Sasha continues. Boy, she’s a talker. “Like, you two… You’ve got this connection. It’s rare to find friendships like that. And I know that Jean tends to be… a little on the jealous side at times. So don’t worry, girl. Not a peep shall spill from these lips of mine.”

“You’re very kind.”

She shrugs, “‘S no biggie,” and then potters over to the kitchen, leaving Mikasa where she stands.

“Come on in!” Sasha squeaks when she doesn’t move. “Take a seat. Make yourself at home. It’s nothing great but it serves its purpose.”

Tentatively, Mikasa does as she’s instructed. She shivers out of her coat, hangs it up over a hook on the wall before taking a seat at the small breakfast table in the kitchen. Sasha’s apartment is messy like Eren’s, but instead of books and dust, she’s got art hanging everywhere, taking up most of her wall space and adding more color than she’s ever seen going on at the same time. It speaks volumes of her personality, like different genres of music playing all at once, filling the air with a noise that somehow translates to a song so attuned, so in harmony with itself, it becomes its own discordant little symphony that somehow just makes sense.

“You know, I’ve seen you at those parties Jean always takes you to,” Sasha says, starting up the coffee machine. It whirrs to life. “You look miserable.”

Mikasa sighs, setting her purse down on the table. “Do I?”

“God yes. Jean may not see it, but I always do. You know what I think it is?”

“What?”

“You and me, we have a lot in common. You’re not from around here, are you?” She smirks when Mikasa shakes her head. “Let me guess. Grew up in the woods? Your father was a hunter? People used to make fun of you in elementary school for the way you talk?”

Mikasa blinks, surprised at her accuracy. “Yes.”

Sasha gives her ponytail a small tug, mouth splitting into a grin. “Same here. It’s rough being an outsider. I could smell your distress from a mile away.”

Mikasa’s eyes fall to the engagement ring on her finger. She frowns. If Sasha noticed her distress as she says she could, why didn’t she ever talk to her? She could’ve saved her a lot of nights of following Jean around awkwardly like a crooked tail.

“I don’t talk to anyone in those places,” Sasha says suddenly, reading her expression. “The only reason I even go to those gatherings is because my family has close ties with Jean’s. They’re business partners. I’ve gotta tag along with Ma and Pa to ‘represent’. But then, the second I open my mouth and a ‘fuck’ comes out, I’ve shamed my family. I’m to be shunned and cast away into the sea to let the sharks have me.”

“Wow,” Mikasa mutters, shifting in her seat. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

A long silence follows. The apartment sits quietly, the art on the walls breathing stories they may never fully tell, quelling Mikasa’s burgeoning discomfort and transforming it to quiet curiosity. The coffee maker sputters. Sasha attends it for a moment, brews herself a pot.

“So,” she drawls eventually, her back to Mikasa. “How did you and Eren meet?”

Mikasa’s quick to answer. “A mutual friend introduced us when we were little. He helped me get through a lot.”

“Like?”

“A lot of stuff.”

“Mmm. So you guys go way back, then.”

“Yes.” She looks around, admiring a painting on the wall beside her. It’s a portrait of someone she’s never seen before. “How about you? How did you meet him?”

“God, it was so long ago. We’ve been neighbors for ages.”

Mikasa says, “I was neighbors with him too.”

Sasha turns, smiling. “Yeah? Wow. Then you must know what a pain he is to live with.” That, she sure does. “He’s been here since leaving his hometown after some nasty incident or somethin’ some six years ago, I think. Never talks much about it. Boy, he was weird.”

“Was he?”

“Oh, yeah. Took him months before he even said a word to me, and my father’s his landlord! He’s alright now. I mean, he’s gotten better. But the first year he lived here was… I don’t know. Harsh.”

“How so?”

Sasha’s sigh is weary. “Well, he had night terrors. Nightmares. Not sure exactly what to call them, but they were bad. Really bad. They’re better now, though.” She smiles, but Mikasa doesn’t return it, so she clears her throat. “Anyway, so Hitch and I got pretty sick of being woken up in the middle of the night by a bunch of ruckus, and we didn’t know what to do about it. He was such a sad, helpless thing. I could’ve just told Dad to kick him out or something, but I took pity on him. A good thing, too. He’s got his shit together now. I must say, I’m kind of proud of him.”

“I see.” This is the first time Mikasa hears of his life after everything that happened. She doesn’t really know what to say, how to feel, how to process it.

He suffered when he came here.

And of course he did.

Mikasa swallows, surprised at the lump in her throat. She tries to clear it, but it doesn’t work.

Eren really, really suffered.

“Do you know anything about that?” Sasha asks her suddenly, not seeing the way she stiffens in her chair. “Why he has nightmares? Can’t sleep? I’m telling you, I’ve known him for years and he’s never told me. But his scars… And there’s just… I don’t know. You can tell that he’s gone through shit. As far as I know, he doesn’t even have any family left alive. That’s heartbreaking.”

“I’m sorry,” Mikasa barely manages, picking at some lint on her jeans. She stares down at her hands. They’re moving, registering touch, feeling the fabric of her clothing. And yet they don’t feel like they belong to her, more like extensions of a body that she inhabits but that isn’t hers. 

She’s dissociating.

“I can’t really say why he is that way,” she says finally. Sasha sniffles. 

“I understand. But I reckon you were there, eh?”

Her eyes flick up to meet Sasha’s. She’s got a finger pointed to her right cheekbone, referring to Mikasa’s scar.

“Please,” she’s quick to whisper, her voice so faint it barely escapes the tautness of her throat passage. She brings a hand up to her forehead, as if the topic were giving her a headache. And it is. “Let’s not talk about this.”

“Sorry.” Sasha’s apology is respectful. She doesn’t bring the topic back up again. “Anyway, so what are you?”

A sigh so long that it lingers in the air for a moment. All this talk of sad things… Mikasa wants it to stop. She wants to be with Eren. Not here. It’s nothing against Sasha, but how could she explain that perfectly benign questions like  _ how are you?  _ or  _ what are you?  _ or  _ hello, what’s your name?  _ bring with them such sad, complicated answers because she’s such a sad, complicated being as of late. 

“I used to dance ballet,” she says simply, understanding that Sasha’s question is in no way referring to her race. Which is good. Mikasa appreciates that. But when she says this, her muscles ache with memory, lazy coils winding up the tendons that once stretched and flowed. A dancer who no longer dances. That’s what she is. A dud.

“Ooh, ballet,” Sasha chippers, swiveling around to smile at her. “Like Historia.”

“Hmm?”

“You know, the little blondie chick? The cutie patootie?” She holds a hand out, referring to the blonde’s small stature. “She’s a dancer.”

Mikasa’s eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. “Oh, really?”

“Yep! She’s got a stage name and everything. Ever heard of Christa Lenz?”

“Historia is Christa Lenz?!”

“Yuppers.”

“Wow,” she gasps, slapping a hand on her cheek. Sasha cackles.

“Tell me about it. Her father owns a dance academy and everything. Good stuff. Coffee?”

“No, thanks.”

“Hot chocolate it is.” She grins when Mikasa perks up suddenly. “Eren told me about your love for chocolate. Another thing we have in common, you and I.”

Mikasa doesn’t object to the offer, muttering her thanks. While Sasha prepares her drink, they discuss her profession. She’s a baker, apparently. A cake artist. A pastry chef. And yes, there’s a difference between all three, and she’s all of them. Her passion for food surpassed her need to satisfy her parents, as she claims to have aspired to do something more along her father’s line of work until she turned sixteen and decided that her life was her own to make, not her parents’ to dictate, despite their ardent objections to that.

She owns a cafe, where french pastries and stuff of the like are sold and she gets to converse with friendly regulars. It’s a good, simple life, she says. Good enough for her, which is all that truly matters. “I know that if I were to die randomly tomorrow, I would be content with knowing that I lived well, made something of myself―and did it my way,” she tells Mikasa as she pours some whipped cream over both their drinks. And a prick of jealousy stings her heart. If only she could say the same for herself. 

“Anyway,” Sasha says when they’re both holding mugs in their hands. “So you’re nervous for tonight?” she questions.

Mikasa takes a slurp of her hot chocolate. “Yes. Very.”

“Bah, you’ll have fun, girl. Don’t worry. Just a warning though: We’re a weird bunch.”

“Oh, I know.”

“Ah, yeah. You’ve already met Ymir.” Sasha throws her head back, slapping a hand on the side of her thigh. “Ha! Wait till you see her tonight when she’s sober. She’s a real trip.”

Mikasa smirks into her drink, whipped cream and hot chocolate shrouding her taste buds. Why is it that every time she’s away from home she finds herself indulging? Whether it be in chocolate, or in the presence of Eren, or the foreign friendliness of a stranger, she tests herself and tempts fate, tittering around the forbidden, the exciting. And for what? To prove a point to whom? 

Herself?

Sasha disrupts her string of thoughts, announcing, “Annie’s coming too.”

“Oh?”

“Have you met Annie?”

“No. Isn’t she Eren’s…?”

“Ahhh… Yeah! Yeah, yeah.” Sasha clears her throat. “She’s his hubba hub.”

“So they’re back together now.” It sounds more like a statement rather than a question. Nonetheless, Sasha responds.

“Um, yup! I think so.”

“So no more Hitch?”

“Uh…” 

“Good for them.”

“Mhm!”

Something feels a little… off. And it’s not the hot chocolate. But before Mikasa can begin to form speculations, the front door reverberates with such ferocious, loud pounding that it rattles at the hinges.

“Jesus!” Sasha jolts, nearly dropping her coffee.

“Sash!” shouts a muffled voice outside. “Why’s your door locked?”

“Hold on.”

“Open it!”

“I’m coming!”

There’s more pounding. Sasha’s feet race along the floor. The door swings open, and a very disgruntled Hitch springs into the apartment like a whack-a-mole.

She’s opening her mouth to speak, stomping right in like if she were in her own home, but Sasha’s distressed plea and Mikasa’s presence stalls her.

“We have a visitor,” Sasha peeps up from behind her. “So be normal.”

Hitch’s eyes land on Mikasa, whatever words she was about to say extinguished on her tongue. “Oh,” she drones, unamused. “Hello.”

“Hi,” Mikasa says just as blandly.

“You’re Eren’s friend.”

“I am.”

“He said you’re coming tonight.”

“Yes.”

“Yippee.”

“Hitch,” Sasha scolds, giving her a light shove from behind to spur her onward. “Stop being weird.”

“I’m not being weird,” the woman scoffs, waltzing over to the kitchen. She pours herself a cup of coffee, stealing a mug from inside one of the cabinets. Without pouring sugar or creamer into it, she takes a sip and peers over at Mikasa, leaning back against the kitchen counter. 

“Sorry,” she says, and that has to be, truly, the kindest thing Hitch has ever said to her.

“It’s alright,” Mikasa assures her, glancing down at her feet. She can feel her eyes on her, scrutinizing, sharp as they are. And she thinks perhaps a rude remark will follow. She will comment on her attire, express disapproval like Sasha had done, click her tongue and shake her head and say something mean or sarcastic. But none of these offences come. Her honey-hazel eyes leave her, and Mikasa is pushed to a corner of her consciousness, no longer worthy of her attention, it seems.

Lord. The woman is straight up frightening.

Mikasa fawns at her beauty, and she seems different in this new light. She’s already seen her twice before, but each time, it’s like she’s exposed more, like layers of her have fallen off to reveal hidden surfaces. Her hair’s golden and effortlessly arranged, wisping out in loose coils around her pert features, bare face so striking that Mikasa can’t help but stare.

No wonder Eren’s so tangled up in her. Only he’d be able to match her fire, the blazes in her aura. Mikasa wonders if they ever drive each other absolutely nuts. From the looks of it, they bicker pretty often. But Mikasa doesn’t have to look in too deep to know Hitch really, truly cares about him.

She’s smiling again.

Hitch strikes up a conversation with Sasha, discussing events only they are familiar with. Mikasa sits and watches them. Their exchanges are easy, Sasha’s more benign nature somehow complementing Hitch’s rugged one instead of clashing, as opposites tend to do. They get one another, finish each other’s sentences, and as she stares, Mikasa wonders if perhaps she ever looks this way herself. In retrospect, she really only has one friend. Eren.

Is this what they look like when they’re together? Two people who just… understand? Do they speak their own unique dialect, the way these two do? Sasha laughs at all of Hitch’s jokes, and despite how scarce they are, even Hitch’s chuckles bounce out of her lips once or twice and fix the mood into something pleasant.

As she watches the girls talk back and forth, Mikasa isn’t feeling bored or left out in the slightest. But when Hitch glances her way, she seems to decide otherwise.

Her slender body prowls toward her, lithe and languid in her gait. Then, without so much as a single word of acknowledgement, it plops onto the chair across from hers. In her own way, Mikasa appreciates the gesture. Hitch is trying to include her in the conversation as well. But this doesn’t make her any less intimidating.

“Auuurrgghhhhh!!!” she yells out suddenly, throwing her head back. “I need sex!”

“You just had sex yesterday,” Sasha retorts. “Much to my hearing’s displeasure.” 

Mikasa chokes a little at that.

“I mean,” Sasha continues, her voice unusually flat. “Do you  _ have _ to do it out in the hallway?”

Hitch scoffs. “Please. That was only once.”

“Only once as in yesterday.”

“We weren’t even that loud.”

“Sure, okay.”

Discreetly, Mikasa hides her nose in her mug. She peeks up and the two girls over the rim, eyes darting back and forth between them, starting on her next sip.

“We didn’t think you were home, Sash,” Hitch is saying now. “You’re never here.”

“I fucking live here!”

“So do I!”

“So that gives you permission to have sex out in the hallway? This building echoes, you know.”

Mikasa audibly chokes this time.

“Mikasa, you okay?”

“She’s fine.”

“Excuse me. I’m not asking you, Ms. I Have Sex Literally Right Outside My Apartment.”

“Oh, stop it. It didn’t even last that long.”

“It went on for a solid ten minutes.”

“You counted?!”

“Not like I had much of a choice.”

“Eren said you were out with Ymir!”

“Eren barely knows where his own fucking head is!”

“Damn, Sash.”

“Okay, enough.”

“Agreed,” Hitch deadpans, bringing her coffee back up to her mouth. 

But then Sasha makes the mistake of perpetuating the conversation, adding, “Do it again and I’ll make Dad charge both of you extra rent. Keep the sex indoors, please.”

“Negative. Just no more hallway.”

“Jesus, Hitch.”

“I need more, though, you know?”

“You have it every day!”

“It’s not enough.”

“Oh, my God.”

“I’m just sexually frustrated these days. Shit’s been crazy at work.”

Sasha is commenting something about Hitch being the most “sexually active sexually frustrated person” when Mikasa gives out a sad sigh, thinking,  _ I know the feeling. _

Suddenly, everything goes quiet. With a flush of embarrassment, she realizes why Hitch and Sasha stare.

“Did I say that out loud?”

“Uh oh,” Sasha coos, pouting. “Is Joeanbo not giving you the cookie?”

The what? “No, that’s… That’s not…”

Hitch narrows her eyes at her, bringing her mug up to her mouth. “Mmm. I think Jeanbo’s not giving her the cookie.” Her peachy lips stretch into a smile. “Look at her blush! Oh, you poor thing, you’re sex deprived.”

Sasha agrees. “Cookie deprived.”

“Famished.”

“I— What?”

“Ha! We’re just teasing ya,” Sasha laughs, winking at Hitch.

Oh, Jesus.

“That’s the good thing about Eren though, right?” the catty smirk purrs. “He’s like the gift that keeps on giving.”

It takes Mikasa a few moments to realize what Hitch is insinuating. She shifts uncomfortably in her seat, sinking her gaze to the cooling hot chocolate in her hands. “I wouldn’t know.” 

Hitch downright screams, “WHAT?!” An outrage. “Don't tell me you've never… Oh, my God. You never…?”

Mikasa frowns. “Never what?”

“Eren. Have you two ever—?” She makes hand signals. A small circle with one hand, a finger entering it with the other.

“Oh, goodness,” Mikasa gasps.

“You haven't?” Hitch guffaws. “And you've known him, what, all your life?”

“Hitch. Come on, now,” Sasha chides, eyeing her sternly.

“Seriously! But, I mean, just look at him! I don't understand how you could resist him. Nobody can resist him.”

“Apparently, some people can.”

“So you've never even thought about it?”

“No,” Mikasa drones. “I have not.”

“What, you don't find him cute?”

“I just don't see him that way.”

Silence.

Sasha slurps her coffee.

Hitch squints her eyes at her.

Mikasa swallows.

The silence breaks.

“So you're telling me you've never wanted to sit on his face.”

“Hitch!” Sasha wails, choking.

“You've never looked at his fingers and just, like,  _ known _ .”

“Hitch.”

“Or wondered what his lips might feel like on your neck, his breath all hot in your ear as he whispers dirty shit into it?”

_ “Hitch.” _

“Oh, come on! Don't tell me you've never noticed the cute lil' dimples on his back and wondered what they would feel like in your hands as he—“

“Hitch! Seriously, that's enough.”

“What? We're just talking.”

“It's not an appropriate topic.”

“Why not?”

“Because, hello? She's engaged? To be married?”

Hitch  _ pfffft  _ 's, some tiny drops of spit sputtering out of her mouth. “So?”

“So you shouldn't be asking her these things!”

“Don't be stupid, Sash. Just cause she's got a ring on her finger doesn't mean she doesn't have her own mind. Right?” Her eyes dig around for approval, finding none. “Okay, fine. Whatever. I'm just saying, if I were you, I would've ridden that horse a long time ago.”

Sasha sighs.

Mikasa makes a show of slurping some hot chocolate, but her face is hidden in the mug to shield their eyes from the blush spreading on her cheeks. With her throat this tight, she cannot bring herself to swallow.

How is she supposed to keep a straight face during all this? Of course she’s noticed all those things. She was with him for years! He took her virginity, for crying out loud. But Mikasa can’t be honest, can she? What would be of them if she admitted their past? If she confessed all the firsts he took from her, all the things they did behind her parent’s back.

God. Her face feels hot. The last thing she needs right now is to think of him that way. It’s absurd. It’s wrong. Nevermind the many nights she snuck into his room while Armin was sleeping and slipped under the covers to feel his warmth, how she wouldn’t fall asleep unless he was beside her. And sometimes, he’d wake up. And they’d do more than just sleep. And she’d have to remind him that they needed to be quiet because Armin slept just a room away and he’d say “He’s deaf, Mik” but still, no, shut up, shut up! Why is she thinking these things? Oh, God.

They’re silent for long enough that the topic seems to have drifted off. But then Hitch looks up from her coffee and dead straight into her eyes.

“Mikasa,” she rasps. “Tell me. Would you fuck him?”

“Hitch Dreyse!”

“What? I'm just asking her a question.” She waves Sasha’s shriek away, turning to face a gaping Mikasa. “Listen, if you ever get tired of your man and you're looking for something sweet to wrap your legs around, I totally recommend him.”

Sasha moans. “Forgive her.”

“I mean, he's just…  _ oof! _ ”

“Hitch.”

“For days, for days.”

“Hitch.”

“Four  _ hours _ .”

“Hitch.”

“Sweaty. Rough. Intense.”

“Sweet baby Jesus.”

“You won't even be able to  _ walk _ . And when he's hard? Ho-ho! You could chip a fucking tooth on that thing.”

“Ew!”

“I mean, talk about being. Really. Fucking.  _ HU _ —”

“OKAY THAT'S ENOUGH!!!!!”

Sasha’s hand stops Hitch’s mouth from uttering another word, muffling the rest of her sentence. But the damage is done. Mikasa’s entire face, and even the tips of her ears, are on fire.

“I would rather _ not  _ think of my best friend’s junk, if you don’t mind!” Sasha yelps, groaning in disgust when Hitch licks the palm of her hand to coerce it off of her.

“You should, though. It’s fabulous.”

They mouth a quick exchange:

S:  _ What are you doing? _

H:  _ Testing her. _

S:  _ Stop that. _

“Welp! So much for not scaring Mikasa off!” Sasha squeaks, glaring at the smirking woman. “Thanks, Hitch. Thanks a lot. I’m sure she’s really comfortable now. You’re honestly the reason I have high blood pressure. ”

“Sweetie, that’s all the cake.”

“Dude.”

Hitch goes to open her mouth, but a frenzy of giggles cuts her short.

It’s Mikasa.

She _ laughs,  _ clutching her stomach, nearly toppling over from the force.

Sasha and Hitch stare at her with confusion. But Mikasa’s wheezing. She can’t control it. All this… It’s all so silly. Her laughter fills the air, wrenches her gut, turns her cheeks even more red. A flash of shame crosses her features, but it’s lost. It’s been ages since she’s had a conversation this amusing with strangers. After tonight, though, Hitch and Sasha will become much more than that. She can feel it. 

“What’s so funny?” Sasha frowns, scratching an eyebrow. Hitch looks just as puzzled, her jaw going slack.

“I’m sorry,” Mikasa hiccups, failing to control herself. “I just— _ hic _ —find this so— _ hic _ —very funny!”

“God,” Hitch scoffs. And then, she starts laughing.

Sasha laughs too.

All three of them laugh together. By the time they calm down, their drinks have gone cold. Sasha is pouring herself a second cup of coffee when Hitch asks her, with a friendlier approach than what Mikasa’s used to getting from her, “So whatcha wearing tonight, girl?”

She gazes down at her attire, cheeks still sore from laughing so much. “This.”

“That? Oh no, you’re not wearing that.”

“I don’t have any other clothes.”

Hitch’s expression is pensive for a moment. “What size are you?”

“Uh… Small?”

“Stand up. Turn.” Mikasa does as instructed. The two other women watch. “Mhm. Yep. You’ll fit in my stuff.”

“You sure, Hitch?” Sasha smiles, her eyes glued to Mikasa’s rear. “She’s got a bigger ass than you.”

“Wha—?” Mikasa claps her hands over her butt, self-conscious.

“Hush.” Hitch says. “That doesn’t matter when you wear a dress.”

“Okay, but her boobies. Also bigger.”

Mikasa balks at that. 

Hitch shakes her head. “Don’t matter.”

“It’ll fit too tight.”

“Nonsense! It’s New Year’s Eve. The tighter the better.”

Mikasa flits her gaze between the two of them. Sasha’s eyes have gone to her feet. Hitch still stares at her figure, sizing it up.

“What about shoes?” asks Sasha.

“What’s your shoe size?” asks Hitch.

“Um, seven?”

“Ha! Perfect!

“Should we do it?”

“Hell yes.”

“Do what?”

It’s like something straight out of a movie. In perfect unison, and much to Mikasa’s misfortune, the two girls chipper simultaneously:

“We’re gonna give you a makeover!”

She prays to God, and everything holy, to please have mercy on her soul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah, yes. the notorious hitch scene. for any noy veterans around, you might notice i added dialogue to the scene and played with it a bit. it was honestly so much fun. hitch's character is so straightforward, i don't have to think about it much.
> 
> thank you, and see you next week :3


	14. We Watched the Sun Set Slowly From Our Lives

Death is silent.

Even planets die silently. There’s no loud, deafening boom. Only darkness. Empty black. The vortex that sucks in its surroundings to fill the hole that’s left behind. If not even planets pass with noise, Eren’s feeble mother was to go out the same way. She died quietly, her life extinguished with the faintest of sighs. And a hole no vortex could ever, ever fill became Eren’s heart.

The day he first kissed Mikasa Ackerman, he was ten years old. It was bad. Sloppy. Absolutely nothing like what he thought kissing the prettiest girl he knew would be like. But he was, despite all mortification, satisfied. His hands on her shoulders, the awkward smacking noise of their lips pulling apart, and the pink screaming on her cheeks all culminated into this great, childish moment, forever etched into the history of their lives. And for that, that day was a good day. But then his father knocked and asked to speak with him, and Eren left Mikasa behind and went away with Dad, and then the Best Day Ever quickly became the Absolute Worst Day in History.

Then it was mature, adult hands that framed his shoulders. It was the prickly, stubbly kiss from Daddy’s lips on his forehead. It was “I love you, son,” and “I’m sorry but,” and “she won’t make it,” that became the three worst set of words that could ever be uttered in the same breath.

“Why?” he’d asked his father.

“Why?” he’d asked his friends.

“Why?” he’d asked a god he wasn’t sure he believed in.

“Why?” he’d asked the one who wouldn’t make it, the one who wrapped her scarf around his neck, the one who seemed perfectly healthy―healthier than he’d seen her in a long, long time―and now laid in bed beside him with her cheeks hollow and her bright eyes dead.

Why?

“Because,” said his mother, blinking slowly, her brown hair cascaded across the pillow they shared. “Some things in life we can’t control, Eren.”

“No,” he spat. Anger boiled in his heart, the pit of his stomach. Raw, hot, burning anger. “No, Mom.”

He wanted to tell her that he’d just had his first kiss. He wanted to tell her that Mikasa’s lips tasted like chocolate. He wanted to tell her how the butterflies in his tummy went all sorts of crazy when he stared into her dark, black eyes. He wanted to tell her, _I’m gonna marry that girl someday, Mom. You will be there, and I’m gonna marry her._

But the words that left his lips were: “I’m scared, Mommy. I don’t know what I'll do when you’re gone.”

“You’re strong, Eren. You’re so strong and brave. You make me so proud to be your mother.” _Stop,_ screamed his heart. _Stop, Mommy, stop. Shut up. Don’t talk like that, shut up!_ “I want you to always remember that you’re my hero. You’ve brought me nothing but happiness. I love you. You’re my ugly clam.”

“You’re my pearl, Mom.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want you to go. I don’t want to live without you.”

“I’ll always be with you.”

That was when his lips began to tremble.

“No, you won’t,” he hiccupped. “It’s not fair, Mommy. Why did god have to make you sick? Why couldn’t god make you healthy?”

“Don’t cry,” she whispered, wiping at the dense, fat drops that spilled from his glassy eyes. Eren shook his head.

“Little boys aren’t meant to be without their moms. It doesn’t work that way. I don’t want you to die. I can’t live if you die. Please stay with me, Mommy. Please.”

His eyes weren’t the only ones oozing now. In his life, Eren had only seen his mother cry twice. She never cried. Not in sad movies, not when she was angry, not when she was in pain. The two times he’d witnessed her tears was when he fell from a tree he was climbing and got rushed to the emergency room, and once after a big fight with Dad. That’s it. Mommy never cried. Ever.

But now, she was crying. She was staring deep into Eren’s eyes, and even though his vision was so blurry, he could see the way her features fought for control, how they cracked with grief.

“You’re breaking my heart,” she told him, and Eren knew he’d gone too far. His father had warned him not to do this, not to cause her more emotional strain. But he couldn’t help it. He was just a child. He was just a child and he needed her, he loved her, he needed her. How was he supposed to live without a mother? 

He sobbed. Eren sobbed because he was hopeless, and an ache he couldn’t fathom pierced through parts of him that shouldn't be feeling any pain yet. His heart was too premature to be breaking the way it was. His life was too young to be falling apart already.

“Please,” he begged. “I don’t want you to go. I want to be with you forever. Don’t go. Please. Don’t go, Mommy.” She couldn’t take it anymore. Exhausted―so, so exhausted, Carla wrapped her arms around her son. So close that he could feel her breathing, her chest swaying, and wonder why it couldn’t always be that way. She was dying. She was dying. Soon, she would be gone.

“I love you, Mom.”

“I love you, baby.”

He inhaled her words, her breath, her heartbeat, and kept it all safe within him to carry forever and ever and ever, for the rest of his life.

Little boys shouldn’t have to do that.

But Eren had to.

From an early age, he knew that prayers weren't like phone calls. They don’t get answered, you see. They’re just wisps of hope the desperate soul sends out to the empty, soulless sky. But Eren still prayed that night. He prayed, in his mother’s arms. He prayed, in the tears that fell from his eyes and wet her clothing. He prayed, in the slow droop of their eyelids as they fell asleep. He prayed, in his dreams. He prayed, and his guardian angel held him.

**—o—**

Mikasa’s chest burned from how hard she was crying. Mama held her. She stroked her hair. She wiped her teary eyes and snotty nose and dried the sweat from her face and held her so very tight, held her to keep all her tiny pieces intact but Mikasa, young, little Mikasa, she fell apart.

She was wailing, “My heart, Mama. My heart hurts.”

“It’s okay,” her mother said. In her voice, she could hear Carla.

“It hurts,” she whined again, breathless. Tears seared her eyes and dripped from her chin, down her neck, her hair plastered to her cheeks and forehead. Every part of her face was red. “It hurts so much. I can’t breathe, Mama. It’s breaking.”

“Shh, shh.”

“It’s broken.”

“It’s okay, baby. Mama’s got you. I’m here.”

Mikasa collapsed into her mother’s arms. Mama held her tighter. Unlike her, she was a silent crier. So when Mama started crying too, not even God could hear her tears. And Papa watched from the door with worry in his eyes as his girls knelt and wept together.

Losing a human being is unlike anything a child could ever fathom. It’s not like losing a toy, or a friend, or missing an episode of your favorite TV show. The tragedy that comes with true loss is a whole new kind of death in itself. There’s something in your soul, something spiritual, that halts completely, a big chunk of you that the dead take with them.

“I didn’t pray hard enough,” Mikasa confessed to her parents. “I prayed for Auntie. I prayed, but I didn’t pray hard enough.”

Maybe if she’d made her more flower crowns, or eaten more of her lunches, or played with Eren more and kissed him earlier, Carla would still be alive. If only there was something she could have done, anything to keep fate from clasping its ugly claws around her and snatching her away. If only her innocence was enough to save people, to keep the terrible from happening. How much purer could anything get? A child is a clump from Heaven’s clouds, tasseled and molded to garner all of the world’s goodness. So why does God allow things like this to happen to them? Why does God allow children to suffer, goodness to suffer, for people to lose their purity at such a fragile age? It was beyond Mikasa. Before this day, she had never known true pain. She had never known what it felt like to be betrayed by Kami, by the very clumps of skies that made her.

The world was too young to lose Carla Jaeger.

As Mama held her, Mikasa realized that Eren would never feel his own mother’s embrace again. He would get married, and get a job, and kiss girls and paint masterpieces and learn new songs on his guitar and Carla would never be there to see it. He’d be a father, and Carla would never be there to see it. He’d learn to drive, and Carla would never be there to see it. He’d build a spaceship for Armin and take him to the outside world with an endless supply of chocolate for Mikasa and she would never be there to see them land on the moon, befriend aliens, prove to scientists that space rocks are made of cheese.

“She’s dead, Mama.” It was like saying that the sun turned black, that the planets fell out of orbit, that the earth forgot how to spin. And it felt that way too. It felt impossible. And that’s the saddest part… for it was the inexorable, inexplicable, incomprehensible truth. Not even God could change it. Not even _God._

**—o—**

Eren wished that sadness was quieter. He pretended that he didn’t hear his father weeping. If he were a better person, a better son, he would’ve comforted him. But Dad’s an adult, and adults have stronger hearts. He would live. Unfortunately, they both would.

Mommy passed on a Sunday. Death doesn’t discriminate. It didn’t care that she was funny, or that her laugh was extra loud, or that she was witty and beautiful. It took her. It took her laugh and cut it short. It took her jokes, her smile, her dimples, her voice, her tattoos. It took her and Mikasa believed in God but Eren didn’t now for good because no good God would ever let this happen. Mommy was good. Mommy was gentle and kind and she loved so much and so deeply and she deserved to live and Eren had to do all of that in her place now. 

How could he ever breathe again, he wondered. How would he smile? There would still be soccer practices and ballet lessons, there would still be snow and dance recitals, there would still be ice cream trucks rolling by and women getting pregnant and all sorts of new books coming out for Armin to read and the entire world ended but somehow everything else kept happening, all else moved on.

When Mikasa kissed him for the second time, it was on the cheek. It was to curl her arms around him in a taut embrace. It was to breathe, “I’m sorry,” with sheen veiling her eyes. It was to take him by the hand and say, “Let’s go, Eren,” and save him from his home; where his father’s sobs echoed, where his mother’s laughter echoed, where her absence was so deafening it made even the walls cry.

“Wait,” he whispered, marveling at the sound of his own voice. His body felt hollow, like an empty husk. How he was still moving, still thinking, still talking was beyond him.

“What?”

“I need something first.”

“Your toothbrush?”

“Well, yeah, that too. But no.” What he needed was his mother’s scarf. Dad was out talking with Mikasa’s parents, so they traipsed over to the bathroom and snatched his toothbrush, traipsed over to his bedroom and snatched a clean change of clothes, traipsed over to what used to be his mother’s room, and then he turned to Mikasa and said, “Do me a favor.”

“What?”

“Can you go in and get Mommy’s scarf for me? I don’t wanna go in there.”

Mikasa sucked in a sharp breath. “Yes.” And she was off. Anything for Eren. Anything for her best friend.

The door creaked on its hinges, and as she entered the ghostly room, she tried not to breathe through her nose, panting softly through tiny lips. Everything smelled like Carla. Everything looked like her too. Machines. A messy bed. Morphine lollipops. 

As Mikasa went over to retrieve her scarf from the bed, she had to fight the urge to plop her face into the pillows and inhale the remnants of Carla’s scent. But then she thought of how she must’ve laid on that very spot dying, and she didn’t want to remember her that way. Not her smell. Not like that. The smell of her sweaters, her hair, her food, that’s what Mikasa wanted to keep with her. So then, quickly, her little fingers snatched the scarf, but when she whirled around to sprint out of the room, a quiet rustle made her feet stall.

A letter.

Mikasa peered at it for a moment, blinking. She bent down, took it, turned it to read the lettering written on the front. It was Auntie’s handwriting. A relic, a sliver she had left behind.

_For My Ugly Clam_

A gasp slid between her lips. It was for Eren.

“Mikasa?” she heard him call from outside. “What’s taking you so long?”

“Just a second!” In a panicked whirl, she shoved the letter down her shirt. She was ten, so her chest was still flat, but her training bra was snug enough to hold the letter in place. She came out, fidgeting slightly. The paper pricked her skin, tickled her sternum.

“I’m ready.”

Eren’s eyes were red and swollen. They stared at the scarf in her hands. His fingers moved to grab it, but then gave up.

“Let’s go,” he said, his voice quiet. “I need get out of here before I suffurocate.”

 _Suffocate,_ Mikasa thought, too tired to correct him. In this house, she decided, she was suffurocating too.

**—o—**

“He’s a boy, Charles.”

“He can’t stay in that house. Plus, Grisha needs to get out too. We need to take care of him. It’s the least we can do.”

“I don’t know.”

“My love, my wife, listen to me. Eren needs us. He helped our Mikasa. We need to repay all his family has done for Miki somehow.”

Mama sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. What was it about that boy, that Eren, that made her violate all of her own stern rules? _No boys allowed_ quickly went flying out the window, for her daughter and him were upstairs, taking turns to use her little bathroom to prepare themselves for bed.

“How long will he be staying here?” she asked her husband.

“For as long as he needs.”

“When is the funeral?”

“In two days.”

“And then where will he go?”

“Back home to his father.”

“Alright. He stays here. For as long as he needs to.”

“Thank you.”

When Mikasa walked in, she found Papa with Mama’s face in his hands, his lips on her forehead, her palms on his chest. Parental PDA was gross, but with her heart in such a fragile state, every tiny glimpse of love was a marvel to her.

“We’re ready,” she announced, frightening Mama, who jumped away from Papa and gasped when she saw Eren appear as well.

“Eren,” Mama said, pushing her hair behind her ears. “Ready for bed, love?”

All eyes went to him.

His, however, clung to the floor.

“Eren.”

Nothing.

“Eren?”

“Mm?” His voice was faint, lethargic. “Did you say something?” 

“I said, are you ready for bed?”

“Yes.” By the looks of him, he was already sleeping.

It was difficult for Mikasa to understand. With how wild Eren was by nature, she thought his sadness would be the wailing type, the type that shatters mirrors and punches walls and hurls items across rooms. But he wasn’t a loud mourner. He was the silent type, the type that turns off, ratchets down the volume to complete silence.

“Mrs. Ackerman,” he breathed suddenly, rubbing his sleepless eyes. “Can I have something to drink?”

“Of course. Is chocolate milk alright?”

“Yes.”

Mikasa knew that Eren hated chocolate. She wrinkled her nose and decided to test her own luck. “Can I have some too?”

“No. No chocolate before bedtime. You know the rules.”

“Poopie.”

“Strawberry milk, Miki,” Papa chimed. “Yes or yes?”

“Yes!”

WIth that, Mama violated another one of her stern rules. She gave the kids permission to take their drinks upstairs, something she vehemently refused to allow in the past. But Carla wasn’t dead back then, and Eren wasn’t here, and he wasn’t pretending to like chocolate milk for the sake of not requesting another drink and being bothersome.

It was as if he didn’t want to be felt. His presence was nearly imperceptible. His footsteps weren't mighty stomps anymore, but quiet taps that barely rose above silence. He might as well have been floating, ambling along like a ghost. Loss has a tendency to quiet the soul, to mar the unmarrable.

In Mikasa’s mind, the definition of life itself was Eren Jaeger. Every emotion that had ever been felt, every storm the skies had weathered, every field that ever wilted or bloomed was present in him, carried by his dimple and his grins and his bright eyes. And once upon a time, he’d told her that he wished he knew how to stop feeling. And now it seems that he finally accomplished his goal.

Sleep was pulling on her eyelids when she heard her bedroom door creak open. Mikasa didn’t need to peer to know who it was. A phantom strolled into her room, slithered into her bed, pulled her pink covers over its shoulders―but only after asking for permission first, which she quickly granted.

Her eyes stared into his. The moonlight crept in through her window, bathing one side of his face in silver, occulting the other. The crescent reflections in his eyes professed a liveliness he no longer held within.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him, clutching Ningyo to her chest. “Can’t sleep?”

“No,” Eren answered. “I have trouble falling asleep. And I forgot to bring my meds with me.”

“Your meds?”

“Yep.”

Mikasa frowned. “Have some of my strawberry milk. That always makes me sleepy.”

“Okay.”

He moved, one nuance at a time, and reached for the glass on her nightstand. Most of it was gulped down in one go.

“You’ll choke,” Mikasa told him.

“Shh.”

So she shut up.

When he laid back down, Mikasa’s eyes were playing tug-of-war with sleep. 

“You suck your thumb?” Eren asked her, furrowing a brow.

“Sometimes,” she mumbled, smirking sleepily around her finger. “Mama hates it.”

“You’re such a baby.”

She kicked his leg under the covers.

“A strong one,” he grimaced. “Ouch.”

When she snorted through a smile, with her thumb still in her mouth, Eren marveled at the crinkles of her eyes. She was beautiful, more beautiful than anything that could ever be explained. Mom was beautiful. Sunsets were beautiful. Stars were beautiful. Mikasa, you see, was a whole new brand of beauty in itself. It made his heart all itchy and fluttery in ways he was too young to understand.

“I miss her,” Eren murmured, curling his fingers around Carla’s scarf over his shoulders. “I miss her so much, Mikasa.”

“I do too,” the girl murmured, blinking slowly. “I miss her so much that I can’t function. Sometimes, I feel like smiling or laughing, but then I stop. Or as soon as I do, I think of how she’s no longer here, and then smiling and laughing just isn’t worth it anymore.”

“Right? I feel the same way.”

“I miss her spaghetti.”

“I miss her laugh.”

“I miss her eyes.”

“I miss her hair.”

“I miss her feet.”

“I miss her voice.”

“I miss her jokes.”

“I miss her,” sighed Eren. “I can’t believe she’s gone. She’s really gone, Mikasa.”

There was silence.

Neither of them knew what to say. Not Eren. Not Mikasa. Not the strawberry milk in their bellies or the moon in the sky. But it witnessed the way its silvery glow shifted on the boy’s features when the girl brought a hand up to his face. Her palm on his cheek was small and fragile. 

“I’ll protect you,” she told him in a whisper. “I promise. I’ll protect you, Eren.”

“How?” he asked her helplessly. How could anyone protect him, save him from himself?

“Once upon a time,” she said, threading her fingers through his hair. Eren closed his eyes again, lost in her voice, lost in her touch. “There was an ugly clam. It was so ugly that all the other clams hated it, but one day a bunch of divers came to eat them all and inside that ugly clam they found the most beautiful pearl in all of existence.”

“That’s not how the story goes,” Eren snorted. “You gotta tell it like Mom did.”

“Nobody can tell it the way Auntie did.”

“True.”

“But you know what, Eren?”

“What?”

“You are my pearl.”

This shocked him.

“Really?” he gasped, amazed that he could be more than the simple ugly clam. He’d only ever had this exchange with his mother. “Do you mean that, Mikasa?”

“Mhm,” the girl nodded, bringing her thumb back into her mouth. “You are my pearl. But Carla is the queen clam.”

“She was the queen clam,” Eren said, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “She was the queen of everything.”

“Indeed.”

Slowly, the young girl fell asleep. But before her eyes closed, before the sound of her squeaky little voice left him, she said, “Goodnight, Eren,” and he could smell the strawberry milk in her breath.

“Goodnight,” he’d told her, wondering what her lips might taste like now that Mom was dead. He had a feeling that they―and everything else he’d ever taste again―would be different.

But he never kissed her lips that night. Not even when her sleepy breaths billowed beside him. Not even when her thumb fell out of her mouth. Instead, he kissed her small hand, the teeny tiny tip of her nose. It was when his lips pressed to her eyelids, when he felt her lashes tickling his skin, that he realized that God wasn’t necessarily an abyssal entity. Sometimes, God was just love. God was just a girl, snoring softly in her sleep, with her thumb coated in saliva and a dark thread of hair fallen across her cheek.

**—o—**

“Stars are big balls of gas that radiate light,” said Armin, fixing the tie around his neck. “Not souls, Mikasa.”

“I beg to differ,” she muttered, crossing her arms over her chest. “There is no scientific proof that specifies stars are big balls of gas.”

“Um, there is.”

“Where?”

“NASA?”

“To poop with NASA.”

“Gosh,” Armin groaned “You sound like every other religious person out there.”

“I’m sure that was meant to be offensive,” said the girl, “but frankly, I have a funeral to attend.”

“As do I.”

“Then you agree with me: Carla is a star now. A big, fat, gassy star.”

Despite himself, Armin smiled.

“Okay, Mikasa.” He hid Carla’s letter in his jacket, scoffing out a small laugh. “But what star is she now, then?”

This made her think.

“The sun,” she decided quickly. “She’s the sun now.”

**—o—**

Papa always said that funerals are for the living. What, exactly, do they accomplish? They are gatherings of breathing lungs and beating hearts and thinking brains. They are sadness parties that do nothing for the corpse inside the casket. They don’t help the dead go to Heaven, or rest in peace, or their journey to the stars any easier. Funerals are made to help the living live on. To let go by throwing dirt on all the memories that were once a human life, a soul that God let them all borrow and decided to take back.

Eren did not cry.

Mikasa and Armin watched him. He did not cry as his father wept beside him. He did not cry during his eulogy. He did not cry as Auntie’s casket was lowered into the earth. He did not cry when a sea of flowers flooded her tomb, made it come alive somehow. So many colors. So many flowers. They were even brighter in the snow.

“We have something for you,” Armin told him afterwards, not bothering with fancy hugs or gloomy I’m sorry’s. He knew Eren well enough to understand exactly what he needed at then. To Eren, the world must’ve felt too noisy. All day, he was pulled into embraces, listened to how sorry everyone was, how amazing Carla was, how great everything was but isn’t anymore. So Armin and Mikasa pulled him aside as their parents were conversing, and in the best way they knew how, they gave their friend a small pocket of silence.

“This is for you.” Armin offered him Carla’s letter, the one Mikasa had found in her room and begged him to present to Eren. She couldn’t have done it herself. There was something about Armin, the way he bore his own pain, that was more mature and stable than the way Mikasa carried hers. She thought maybe he was just better at handling sadness because he was always sick. Nonetheless, he’d agreed to be the one to give Eren the letter. “We won’t tell you how we found it,” he continued, “but we think it’s good that you read it, Eren.”

His eyes studied his mother’s handwriting. Squinted.

“No.” he said. “I don’t want to. I’m so tired.”

“We’ll be right here with you,” piped Mikasa. “Come with us. Let’s go to your mother’s grave. We can read it there in silence.”

“Please,” begged Armin. “We’re here for you, Eren. Please, read it. It’s what she would’ve wanted.”

Eren scowled at the letter.

“Fine.”

Then they walked.

A thin sheet of snow covered the grass. It cracked and mushed beneath their shoes, chilled their legs when they knelt before the sea of flowers. Eren’s hands were pink from being exposed to the cold. He didn’t care. He tore the letter open with his fingers, sighed, and began to read.

Eren hated reading.

He hated reading so much.

His friends waited patiently for him to finish. It didn’t take him even five minutes. He did not cry. He did not cry. Even when he was finished, he did not cry.

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye,” he said quietly, holding the letter in his hands. It trembled with the breeze, fluttering on his lap. “She was gone before I knew it.”

“Then tell her everything now,” was Mikasa’s proposal. “Tell her everything you wanted to say. Now’s your chance, Eren.”

“She can’t hear me!” he snapped at her. “How am I supposed to speak to the dead, huh? She’s dead. Stone cold _dead._ ”

“Eren,” Armin begged. He was starting to crack, his blue eyes reddening. “Please.”

Eren sighed. It was heavy and exasperated and so thick it clouded in the air.

“Fine. I’ll talk to this stupid tombstone.”

They waited. They waited.

“Mom,” Eren began finally, his voice suddenly much softer. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for yelling at you sometimes, for being a pain about showering and helping with laundry and washing dishes even when I knew that your hands hurt too much. I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry that I cuss sometimes, that I get into so many fights and worry you. I’m sorry that I didn’t pick up my toys when you told me to or practiced the guitar as much as I should have. You…” He stopped.

“Keep going,” Armin prompted. “Go on.”

“You…”

“That’s it.”

“You can do it, Eren.”

Finally, finally, finally, he began to cry.

“You loved me so much,” Eren whispered, tears welling in his eyes. “You loved me, and I was so unfair to you sometimes. I should’ve told you that I loved you more. I should’ve…” His hands balled on his lap, crumpling the letter. “I should’ve done more to make you happy. You gave me everything. Even when you were sick, Mom, you gave me everything. You would play with me when you were too tired. You wouldn’t lay down until I was done playing hide and seek or any other stupid game I made you play with me.”

Armin was crying now. His breathing shuddered its way out of him, quiet and imperceptible, too afraid to meet Eren’s voice and interrupt. At the sight, Mikasa began to cry as well.

Eren continued.

He was so strong.

He continued. 

“I love you so much, Mommy,” he said. “I’ll love you all my life. I miss you. I miss you like heck. I miss you with every bite of food, with every leaf on every tree in the entire planet. I should’ve told you how happy I am that you’re my mom. I’ll never feel you again. I’ll never hear you breathe. I’ll never see you angry at me or Dad and that, Mommy… that’s so painful. It hurts so much.”

Mikasa sucked in a breath, her eyes finally spilling. 

Armin wiped his tears on his coat sleeve.

Eren was trembling. He wanted to give up. But he fought. He went on. 

He told her, “Before you died, I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for loving me, for being my mom. I promise I’ll be good to Daddy. I’ll take care of him, and Armin and Mikasa too. I’ll be a good boy, I promise, I swear. I’ll behave. I’ll make you proud. I’ll make you so proud, Ma. I hope you find the fluffiest cloud in the sky, and anytime I hear people laughing or see them happy, I’ll see you. Goodbye, Mommy. I love you. Goodbye.”

His head fell. He sobbed. His shoulders shook as tears dripped off his chin and landed on his jacket. For the first time in her life, Mikasa saw Eren cry.

“You did it,” she whispered, peering at him through her own tears.

Armin was proud of him. He was sobbing too.

“I’m sorry,” Eren whimpered. “I’m so sorry, guys.” 

He nearly stumbled when Mikasa threw her arms around him. Seconds later, Armin had his arms around him too.

They cried. The sun began to set, dwindling rays caressing the snow, their weeping figures. All three of them held each other, and as Mikasa hugged her favorite boy in the world―the one who came marching into her life with a dirty soccer ball and bloody bandaids and crazy hair―she realized that sometimes princes needed saving too. So she held him. Together, Armin and Mikasa, they held him: two walls, one roof. A family. A sanctuary.

A home.

**—o—**

_For My Ugly Clam_

_My dear, sweet Eren,_

_How mad at me I know you must be. You might feel that I betrayed you, left you behind all alone in the world. But if there is anyone I know is strong enough to survive this, it’s you._

_My boy, you’ve made me proud beyond anything you can imagine. A million perfect pearls don’t compare to the worth you have for me. Please forgive me. I wish that I was given more time. I envy all who will get to see you grow. I can already imagine it, your dimple and your freckles and your manly voice, how much taller than me you’d grow up to be, and yet all I can picture in my mind is my little Eren, the one that stared at me when I first held him, the curious little toddler that would laugh whenever he fell. God, you cried so much. Your father and I didn’t get a good night’s sleep until you were four. That’s when everything changed, though, wasn’t it? That’s when Mommy got sick and you started worrying. You would bring me flowers from our garden to see me smile, you’d scold Daddy for not making me tea or cuddling me to keep me warm when I was shivering. So you would do it yourself. You’d microwave water and plop a little tea bag inside. I have to tell you something, honey, you were never very good at making tea. But I would drink it all. How could I not, when your big eyes were watching me? When you’d insist on being the big spoon, even though you were much smaller than me? You kept me warm, though. Whenever I was cold, you kept me warm._

_It’s when I think of all these things that I feel a pain greater than anything well up inside me. But things are always as they should be. Always. In that, I have the utmost faith._

_I will try to make this brief now, as I can hardly control my hands. You know how much Mommy hates that, when her hands start to cramp. So if I could take my beautiful, ample life and cram it all into one tiny, breathing accomplishment to summarize everything I am, have been, and ever will be, it’s you._

_I love you, son. I love you, and that is enough for me. You alone have been worth living for. Every time you see a star in the sky, or feel the wind or the sun on your face, I want you to remember: I will always be with you._

_I adore you. Beyond anything words could ever dream to express, I adore you._

_-Mom_

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> out of all 36 chapters of this fic, this is the only one that made me bawl my eyes out. five years later, and i still cried (more than once, may i confess). there's so much i processed personally here, and it's bewildering to still feel the sting of such raw emotion.
> 
> thank you for reading, for commenting, for following the story through. for being here again and anew.
> 
> see you next week,  
> nati ♥


	15. The Pleasure’s All Mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please bestow your eyes on this gorgeous fanart that my sweet friend kazia made for not over yet! i think i screamed for a solid 15 minutes when i first saw it. i strongly implore that you visit the post on tumblr and like/reblog to show her some love! you'll be directed to the link by clicking on the fanart :)
> 
>  **UPDATE:** um! so somehow i am the luckiest girl in the world?! twitter user [@ackersthetic1](https://twitter.com/ackersthetic1) surprised me by making some gorgeous (and spicy) fanart for this chapter! it's displayed at the end. once again, click the art for the link and be sure to show some love ^^
> 
> enjoy ♡

**::** [](https://kaziakovska.tumblr.com/post/630865335536467968/dialectus-shakes-my-entire-soul-with-each-new) **::**

**—o—**

Mikasa pores over her own reflection in the mirror, cringing at what she sees. Months of wearing Prada heels and bodycon Gabbana dresses should’ve prepared her for this—but, quite frankly, _nothing_ could’ve prepared her for the skimpy ordeal that is Hitch’s wardrobe. 

“Guys,” she says, sucking in her tummy. “I don’t know. I look… weird.”

“Oh, come on!” She hears Sasha squeak, the springs in Hitch’s bed bouncing with her body. “Let us see you! Come on, come on!”

“It’s… It’s too tight.”

“I’m sure you look great!”

“No.”

“Mikasa, come out of that bathroom before I go in there and take you out myself.”

“Hitch, chillax.”

With what sounds like a roar/bleat of frustration, Hitch does quite the opposite of chillaxing. She yells, “Come out!”

Mikasa sighs. “Okay, I’ll come out. But please, don’t laugh.”

“We won’t!”

“Come out, woman.”

“Okay, I’m coming. Don’t laugh.”

“Hurry up!”

The bathroom door screeches on its hinges, announcing the presence of a very shy, very insecure young woman. She waddles over to them. Stands.

Their gasps are simultaneous.

“Holy fuck.”

“You look…” Sasha snorts into her fist, smiling. “You look… Wow. You look—”

“Like you’ve got two asses,” Hitch deadpans. Seeing how her eyes take in every curve and line of her body, Mikasa’s face darkens.

“No!” Sasha blurts with a start, reaching to stop her from disappearing back into the bathroom to change out of the clothes. “Wait, hold up. It looks good. Really! Like, wow, okay. Amazing!”

A sigh. It’s troubled and peeved. Mikasa’s hands fall to her stomach, where she can hardly feel the sways of her own breathing. The dress is so damn tight, it practically squeezes in her organs, she thinks. 

She sighs again, a thread of hair blowing from her lips. “But I… I feel strange.”

All eyes fall to the blonde one of the three. She’s scrunching her eyes, clicking her tongue in disapproval.

“Hitch?”

“Something’s missing.”

“What is?”

“Hmmm…” Skulking over to Mikasa, she fixes her gaze on her bosom. Hitch’s frown grows deeper, and what was going to be a question becomes a startled yelp when her hands dig right into the bust of the dress to pull—yes, pull—Mikasa’s breasts up to accentuate what already was too much cleavage hanging out.

Violated, horrified, aghast, Mikasa gapes. “You just—”

“There,” Hitch grins, satisfied. “Now, that’s perfect.”

Sasha scoffs, still smiling. “Damn, girl. You look hot.”

“I can’t breathe.”

“That’s how you know you look good.”

“But my breasts—”

“Look great!”

“But—”

“And your legs too!”

“Guys… I’m not so sure about this.”

Sasha’s eyes are soft when they stay on her. They seem genuinely concerned. “You don’t like it?”

“I feel…” Oh, what’s the word? Ridiculous? Provocative? Uncouth? “Naked.”

Hitch is the one to scoff this time. “What’s wrong with feeling naked?”

Well, in fact, many things, Hitch. For one, her ex is right next door getting ready to go out to a party she probably shouldn’t even be attending and guess what he’s wearing? Jeans! Not tight dresses that make his ass look like it popped out a clone, thank you very much.

“Mikasa,” Sasha smiles sweetly. “Just give it a chance! You’ve never worn anything like this, yeah? Let this be a first. Have fun. Feel sexy. This is your night too!”

Sexy? _Sexy?_ God. Mikasa isn't sure she's felt sexy a day in her life.

“If you’re really that uncomfortable,” Hitch says, “you can change. We won’t force you to wear anything you don’t want to. But I’m not lying, you look good. I’d bang you.”

“It’s true. And Hitch isn’t someone to give out compliments so easily.”

_That was a compliment?_

“Thanks. I… I’ll keep it.”

“Great!”

“But don’t you have, say, a cardigan I could wear? At least to cover up slightly?”

Hitch’s smirk twists into a full-fledged smile. Mikasa is left to stare, and she nearly cannot believe that this woman is the same one she found half-naked at Eren’s door some weeks ago. She feels tiny, shrinking in the intensity of her gaze. But it’s patient now, easy on her.

She says, “Sure, hun. I’ll find you one.” And then she’s gone.

“Yay!” Sasha chippers, clapping her hands quickly. “I’m so excited! You’re gonna break necks tonight, girl.”

“And hearts,” adds Hitch, slinking away into her walk-in closet with a wink.

Mikasa sighs, gazing down at the open-toe heels she’s stuffed her feet into. “Or an ankle.”

**—o—**

Two hours.

Two torturous, laborious hours later and finally, _finally_ the girls are done.

Hitch, in all her lynx-like glory, makes walking in tall heels and tight dresses seem like an artform―which she’s mastered, naturally, to the point where Mikasa wouldn’t be shocked if she could sprint a couple yards without twisting an ankle. It’d taken her ages to do her makeup, but in two minutes tops, she’d painted on the fiercest winged eyeliner and most flawless contouring Mikasa had ever seen.

Sasha, on the other hand, doesn’t do more than apply a single coat of mascara. She’s surprisingly nimble in her own pair of borrowed heels and skimpy attire. And after Hitch and her take a couple of selfies (to which Mikasa vehemently refuses to be a part of), the front door to her apartment explodes open with a boisterous blast.

“I’M HERE MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

It’s Ymir.

“Shh!” hisses Historia, yanking on her girlfriend’s coat. “Ymir, please.”

“Sorry, baby.”

“Ymir!” Immediately, Hitch is sprinting her way (told you she could do it) and jumping into her arms to coil her legs around her. With a labored groan, Ymir catches her. 

“Hey there, sweet cheeks,” she chuckles at a squealing Hitch, whose grip on her neck is throttling. Ymir groans again, wincing into an even tighter embrace. “Missed me much?”

“Like hell, you twat.”

“I missed you too. Now hop off me.”

Sasha’s next. She wraps her arms around her, giggling happily and swaying from side to side. Historia is sweet as always, kissing everyone’s cheeks and saying hello.

“The boys are downstairs waiting,” she says. At the thought of facing Eren, Mikasa’s stomach does several flips. Her excitement and simultaneous dread mix into some odd, overwhelming concoction that makes her queasy yet content. Is it possible to feel two extremes at once? Is it normal to feel fierce yet frightened? Brave but scared? Courageous and sheepish? What _is_ all of this? What’s this shining, messy whirlwind of activity making noise inside of her?

It echoes. 

She breathes it.

Her lungs swell. Release.

And as she stands, Mikasa feels so suddenly attuned with herself. Like the plug that attaches her body to her soul finally connects. For months, she’s worn expensive clothing that was hers but belonged to someone else, led a life that was hers yet made for another. _Not me,_ her heart kept telling her, detaching from all outer senses. Not me. Not me. 

And now, even in Hitch’s dress and heels and makeup, Mikasa feels…strong. She smells the girls’ perfumes, sees the twinkling smiles on their faces, feels the fibers of her coat as she slips it over her shoulders, tastes her heartbeat at the back of her throat and hears the thump, thump, thumping of heels on floors until they’re all outside and about to make their way down to where the boys—to where Eren is waiting and she feels, she breathes, she thinks, she _is_ like herself again. Even if it’s only for the most fleeting, most fragile of moments.

They walk. Onward into the crisp night.

The air is promising.

**—o—**

_Thump…_

_Thump…_

_Thump…_

“Ugh, Eren, would you stop that?”

The tennis ball freezes in his hand. “Stop what?”

“That—” Bertholdt’s arms flail with empty gestures. “Noise.”

“Oh.” Eren smirks, rolling the ball between his fingers. “You mean this?”

_Thu-thump!_

“Yeah.”

_Thu-thump!_

“Stop it.”

_Thu-tump!_

“Great. He’s double bouncing it now.”

Connie groans over the incessant hammering. “Jesus! What’s taking them so long?”

“Patience,” mutters Reiner, throwing the ball back at Eren when it accidentally hits him on the arm.

He catches it, throws it again.

It hits Reiner’s chest this time.

“You fucking—”

The ball goes flying toward a giggling Eren. He curls sideways to avoid the blow but it still hits him on the side of his leg. That doesn’t stop him, though. His boredom is too great.

He hurls the ball and it hits the floor, the wall, then bounces right back at him. He captures it, throws again, never misses. The repetitive thuds are beginning to sound very much like a heartbeat, when a sudden sharper, hollower thump makes his head turn and steals his full attention.

Mikasa.

She stands. At the top of the stairs. Her gaze downcast. 

His friends gasp in ripples around him.

“Oh, my god.”

“Is that—?”

“Holy…”

“Holy shit,” Eren whispers.

Everything hangs for a breathless beat as her eyes, softly, move to latch onto his.

And when they do, they linger, as does the pause in his pulse, the rigid posture they all acquire. Her hair dangles in gentle curls, and he’s never seen it this long, this marceled, this exquisitely arranged, tresses stolen from the night sky to spill like rainfall around her face. Her eyes are captivating even from afar, pink lips dewy with a sheen that makes them seem as if kissed by starlight. 

Her dress shimmers faintly. Red. She wears that color often, Eren realizes. Wears it so that it matches her lips, her cheeks. And her coat shields the rest of her figure from his scouring eyes, much to his sudden dissatisfaction. He’s seen her in dresses before and in high heels but never like this, never like this. She looks so new, made of ash and porcelain and roses. She parts her lips to speak, a tendril of hair curling by her chin, white glimpse of teeth calling out to him when—

“Ow! _Fuck!_ ”

“Eren!”

“Holy shit, are you—?”

“Whoa!”

“Mufasa!”

“Catch her!”

“She’s okay, she’s alive.”

“Mikasa, are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she pants, struggling back to her feet, her arms curled around the railing on the wall. “I slipped. Missed a step, that’s all.”

“You nearly ate shit!” screams Ymir. Historia slaps her lightly on the arm.

“It’s these heels,” she tells them quietly, embarrassed at the scene. Eren’s groaning with the side of his face in his hands. Reiner’s clutching his gut nearby and nearly keeling over with laughter.

“He got ball-smacked in the face!” he sputters.

Connie blinks. “Are you okay, man?”

More groans. Reiner laughs harder.

“Jesus. You two are a wreck,” Sasha says.

Mikasa clears her throat. Her eyes fly over to Eren. He’s glaring at Reiner now.

Something in her somersaults. All of her somersaults, actually.

She falls again.

  
  


**—o—**

They do not speak. Not until way past nine o’clock. 

And when they do, it’s after pottering noisily to Sasha’s cafe on foot, the same one Eren had taken her to the night they first ran into each other.

All sorts of mixed drinks line the countertops after Ymir and Hitch get their hands on a few bottles of questionable liquids. The guys pull a couple of tables together to play a mean game of pong, which Mikasa quickly discovers not to be good ol’ regular ping pong, but a game where one throws small plastic balls into Solo cups in pursuit of intoxicating the opposing team. A silly game, she reckons, but Eren is excited as ever, grinning from ear to ear with the beginnings of a faint bruise on his cheekbone that Connie keeps trying to poke at, that Hitch keeps trying to treat, that he keeps dismissing as nothing to be concerned about.

They do not speak. Not until Mikasa sits by the bar the girls have arranged and takes a sullen sip of her sparkling water.

“Hey, stranger.” Conjured from thin air, Eren slinks in beside her. “Having fun?”

“Of course,” Mikasa smiles. “This club soda is supreme.”

“Ah,” he leans back on the counter top, propping his weight on his forearms. His shirt tightens on his chest, outlining the ridges of bone, the subtle swells of muscle. 

Knowing that she should look away, Mikasa doesn’t. 

“I was wondering what you had sneaked up in there,” he says, nodding at her cup. 

“H2O. Carbonated. Highly intoxicating.” Eren grins at her sarcasm. 

“Oh-ho! Watch out, everyone. We have a badass in our midst.”

Mikasa feels herself blushing. It starts at the base of her neck, crawls up her throat, engulfs her cheeks and lips and addles her ever-so-calculated thought process. Strands of his hair fall over his eyes, framing his face and the back of his neck—the rest all trapped in a little knot behind his head. With his hair pulled back like that, Eren looks more blazing, more awake. He looks…

God, he’s so handsome. 

Flushed, she peers to find the naked little puncture in his earlobe, recognizing it from back when he’d convinced Armin to partake in one of his antics. Their poor friend had _wailed_ when the piercing made it through Eren’s ear, utterly freaked by the sensation. And she wonders what other parts of him remain timeless, recalling the lone freckle on his left thigh, the squiggly tattoo at the side of his hip he’d gotten in High School whilst drunk out of his mind (surely, quite illegal). All hidden aspects of him that are buried but unclothed in her mind.

She’s losing a tinge of control, she knows it, so she does what any normal person would do in her situation. She punches him.

“Ouch,” Eren winces, frowning. “Totally unnecessary.”

“Very necessary.”

“If it wasn’t because I know that’s how you show affection, I’d punch you back.”

“You can’t hit a girl.”

“You’re not a girl, you’re a tank.”

“Am not.”

He pulls his shirt sleeve up, revealing a red patch on his bicep, the burgeoning mark right on the spot where she’d delivered the blow.

“Oh,” Mikasa gasps, her hands flying to his arm in reflex. “I’m sorry! I won’t hit you again, I promise.”

Eren goes to speak, when they both notice her hands linger.

He grins, the fucking bloke, flashing that stupid, brazen, frustrating dimple of his.

“Sorry,” Mikasa murmurs, thoroughly aware that she violated their bubble-of-safe-distance rule. And there’s so many rules. She curls her hands away from him. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“That’s alright.” Still grinning. “I'm not complaining.”

“Oh, hush.”

“Ah, I know,” Eren grunts, stretching his arm so that it flexes. “It’s my muscles, isn’t it? They’re hard to resist.”

“Eren, I am mentally punching you right now.”

“But you can’t. It’s your New Year’s resolution not to be an abuser.”

“I’m not an abuser.”

“You just assaulted me.”

“How?”

“My arm. It has been held in ways that I can’t— Ah!”

“To slag with my resolution. You deserved that.”

“Fair enough.”

They laugh. Together.

Her cheeks feel hot.

Mikasa parts her lips to say something, and Eren’s eyes flick down to watch them, draw out the words she’s about to voice when she chooses to say nothing, as she so often does, top and bottom lip meeting with a smile. 

She looks so delicate. 

Eren, practically carved from the bowels of the world, bears the scars that tell the truths of his misfortunes, the calluses and features that gradually sharpened from enduring the anvil of his life. But Mikasa is as perfect as a clump of virgin snow. There’s not a stain on her; an angel. And Eren has always called her that. Even now, with that scar on her cheek and that ring on her finger and that makeup he knows Hitch had to work on for hours—she is winged, haloed, marvelous. 

A few moments later, and Mikasa pulls her curls up into a neat little bun, which most likely kills them. Her fringe falls all over her face, the way it always does, and she runs quick fingers through the hairs to get them to cooperate. 

Quietly, Eren watches the flurry of activity behind her head. In a flash, she’s done, and a tuft of her hair dangles between her eyes, which they both notice immediately. She gives a frustrated little huff, and without thinking, Eren reaches out and tucks the lock behind her ear, fingertips brushing her cheek, clinging to the smoothness of her skin, the curve of her earlobe, the soft hairs that curl up underneath. 

And they know, the two of them, that this, right here, right now, is wrong. 

Mikasa thanks him, and Eren goes all serious, swallowing the apology that sits heavy on his tongue. Because he truly is sorry. But he truly is not.

Still, the hope arises, a small flicker of light in the darkness of the night. She’d let him touch her, let him stay. There. On that sliver of cartilage and bone. And when he’s retreating, when a reluctant hand falls limply at his side, when he’s looking away to clear his throat and swallow, yet again, what rings vibrantly in his throat, he silences it—all of it. All that simmers dimly and yearns to cajole in open flames.

He needs to be quiet. About loving her, all that shit. He needs to be quiet. But he’d taken some hits from Reiner’s lousy job of a rolled blunt and maybe he’s starting to feel it, starting to crumble the respectful, distant, stifling walls he has to erect around her. Maybe his eyes are finally rubies, glassy and reflecting the beginnings of his high. She’d always hated when he smoked, and maybe she knows. She’s staring right into him, almost searching. But searching for what? She’s— 

“Annie!”

Fuck.

Eren jumps. Mikasa frowns at that, then turns her head to follow the line of his vision. A small blonde sporting ripped jeans and a leather jacket—with eyes even bluer and brighter than Eren’s—stands by the door. Everyone explodes into greeting. Everyone but him.

“Annabelle!” they cheer. “Finally!”

“I’ve told you thirty times, don’t call me that.”

Mikasa swallows.

Her voice is gravely, rasping its way out of her mouth. Her hair’s curled back in a messy bun at the lower back of her head, wisps of gold fanning out of the flaxen cluster. Barren of a single trace of makeup, she is austere in her attractiveness. Every inch of her seeps intimidation, even—no, _especially_ the brace around her wrist. There’s not a hair of weakness on her body. She resounds hard, cold strength. 

“Your girlfriend’s here,” Mikasa comments dumbly. Eren sighs.

“Yeah.” He’s frowning. At what, or why, she doesn’t know. But then his gaze grows softer, and he turns to her and says, “Wanna meet her?”

“Ah…”

“Perfect! ‘Cause she’s coming over.”

Annie makes a beeline to where they stand, nodding once at her boyfriend (some greeting, that) and then blinking slowly at the nervous girl beside him.

“Annie,” Eren says. “This is Mikasa. She’s that old friend I told you about.”

“Nice to meet you, Annie.”

“Likewise.”

And they say no more.

Mikasa takes a sip of her club soda, peering at the small woman over the rim of the cup. Next to Eren, Annie looks direly tiny. Her eyes are so calm they seem almost bored, but take in everything with sharp, keen flicks of primal instinct. Her blinks are almost sluggish. In fact, all of her motions seem apathetically slow, as if her body were set on auto-pilot, too careless to put in the effort to take on full flight. 

She's a fighter, though. The sprained wrist, the look in her eyes, the hooked, slightly crooked shape of her nose all profess this. The same way a dancer dances, the fighter fights: with every step, breath, and motion. In that, they are very much alike. 

Mikasa’s eyes go to Eren’s.

He stills, held by her studious gaze.

Is this it? Is this what moving on has been for them? 

Jean is just like him in so many ways—it doesn’t take a genius to know that. He’s just as stubborn, as strong and intense. And just looking at Annie is enough to know that she holds a lot of resemblance to Mikasa. She’s just as quiet, as careful with the words and expressions that she shares. It seems that in forgetting, they simply found ways to remember again. It’s like they’ve sought the vestiges of each other in other people. And found them. 

How sad.

“Eren,” Annie says, swiping her bangs away from her eyes. “I’m gonna go hang out with the others.” She gives him a look that says _aren’t you coming?_

He hesitates.

“Uh…” Mikasa catches how his eyes flitter to her and then away. “Yeah, sure. See ya, Mikasa.”

Annie nods, “‘Kay,” and leaves with him.

As he’s walking away, Eren spares her a glance over his shoulder.

Mikasa is left alone to wonder how in the world it is that her hands are shaking.

**—o—**

Shots are gross.

“Take another one, Mikasa!”

So, so gross.

**—o—**

Grey Goose? 

Jack Daniel’s? 

Bacardi? 

Disgusting.

And none of them get her drunk. None. 

Mikasa grumbles quietly, sinking deeper into the couch. She stares at the dancing whirls of people, ignores Hitch when she implies that Annie got her broken wrist from―and she'd made a pumping motion with a clenched fist. 

You know what she means.

**—o—**

It’s hot.

Mikasa groans, undoing two buttons on her cardigan. Just two.

Her head feels light, yet too heavy for her neck to carry.

She stands.

“Come on! Dance with me!” That would be an intoxicated Sasha pulling her into a sweaty circle of rap with some angry, spitting verse cut rudely in the middle. This isn’t music. It’s screws drilling slowly into her skull.

Incredibly enough, she allows herself to be whisked into the makeshift dance floor.

 _Where’s Eren?_ a voice inside her asks.

The girls gather around her, whooping and shoving for her to move.

She closes her eyes.

Feels the music in her bones, her veins. Lets it shake her.

And for the first time in a very long time, she does what she was born to do.

Dances.

And thinks: _Who cares?_

**—o—**

They do not speak. Not until there’s a thin sheet of sweat sticking little hairs to Mikasa’s neck. 

She slithers in from his right, the taste of beer having long gone stale in his mouth. Annie left to hang with the girls and the guys all laugh and shout around a vigorous game of beer pong. So she singles him out when he’s alone and fishing for another Guinness, deeming him worthy of her sweaty, splendid presence.

Her bun’s a mess.

She’s still wearing that cardigan, despite the heat. Despite her sweating. She sighs, pulling a lock of hair from her cheek. 

“Hello, stranger,” she says. And she’s beautiful.

Eren looks at her, popping the cap off his beer. “Hey,” he musters, side-eyeing her. She’s massaging her ankle, still in her heels. “How goes it?”

“Great.” Her cheeks are red. “I just danced.”

“I saw.”

“I hadn’t done that in… in…”

“Ages?”

“Yes!”

Eren chuckles, scratching his neck. “So, you’re having fun, at least?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Good. I don’t have to hurt anybody?”

“Nope. Everyone’s been very kind to me—even Ymir!”

He snorts, taking a swig of his beer. “Someday, she’ll bother to learn your real name.”

“Meh,” she shrugs. “I always wanted to be Mufasa anyway.”

Eren laughs at that, and Mikasa smiles to herself, smoothing her hands down the skirt of her dress. Her eyes find the bottle in his hand. She questions, “Beer?”

Eren nods and hums mid-slurp. “Mhm. Want some?”

“No. Jägerbomb. Whatever it is, I want one.”

“Hold up.” His eyebrows dart upwards. “You do?”

“Yup.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am.” She looks deep into his eyes and says, “Eren. Jägerbomb me.”

He scoffs, terribly turned on. 

Oh sweet mother of fucking “YMIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“WHAT!!!!”

“BOMB!!!!”

“How many?!”

“A LOT!!!”

“Bro! FUCK YEAH!!!!!”

They have an odd way of interacting, those two.

Ymir hops over the counter a la drunken parkour, meaning that she doesn’t land right. As in, she just doesn’t land. The poor thing, she whisks onto the ground, vanishing behind the bulk of some furniture.

“Whoo!” She scrambles to her feet, straightening her jacket. “I’m fine, I’m good. Nothing happened.”

Jesus.

“Drink with me,” Mikasa tells him.

“You’re sure,” Eren tells her.

“Yes.”

“Alright.” He smiles lazily, eyes all groggy and green. “But just so you know, I’m buzzed already.”

“Me too.” 

Eren snorts. He can hardly believe it. He’s drinking with Mikasa Ackerman.

Mikasa Ackerman. Drunk.

“Oh, this is too good to be true,” he muses. 

Mikasa fans herself, fighting back a smile. “Shh. It’s only for tonight.”

“I have no objections.”

“Sounds like you do.”

“Quite the opposite, really.”

“What kind of drunk are you?” she asks him suddenly. “There’s types.”

Eren blinks. “What?”

“What kind of drunk? I want to know.”

“You don’t remember?”

“Oh, let me see,” Mikasa hums, tapping the point of her chin with her index finger. Her engagement ring sparkles on her hand. “I think I do, actually. The type that’s…”

Eren nods slowly. “Uh huh…”

“The type that’s…” 

“Go on…”

“Well…”

“The type that’s what?” 

“Horny?”

Taken aback by her answer, he gapes at her before throwing his head back with a loud laugh.

Mikasa hides her face in her hands, surprised at her own brashness.

“Ahh,” Eren clears his throat, composing himself. He wipes his knuckles on the edge of his mouth, his shoulders jumping slightly with the remnants of laughter. “Right.”

Bashful, Mikasa peels her hands away from her face. Her eyes go to his hands. And she wonders, for just a second, what they may feel like—imagines them on her face, her shoulders, her forearms. The thought traps her body in a furnace of embarrassment, and she’d be ashamed of herself if it wasn’t for the way he’s looking right back at her. His eyes are gentle on her, but somehow still intense. They always are. She dwindles, pinned beneath his gaze, petals in her being separating to fall away. She feels so raw, so flushed. So different.

Snapping from her tipsy reverie, Mikasa points to his beer.

“Actually, can I have a sip of that?” 

“Of Guinness?”

“Yes.”

“It’s strong, Mik—”

“I can handle it.”

“Mikasa.”

“What?”

“Don’t go crazy.”

“Ah,” she sighs, undoing the buttons of her cardigan to part it open at the front. “Too late.”

Eren’s eyes drop to her dress, and at least he has half the mind to conceal his guiltless staring, sinking his gaze away to down more of his beer. 

When the cardigan falls down her arms and she shimmies out of her heels, she’s an entire head shorter than him. Her fingers tug on the elastic behind her head and free her hair so that it falls in long flows down her back, her chest. 

His gaze, predictably, glues onto her. 

A trickle of heat travels down his belly at the way the dress hugs her body so tight, almost too tight. There’s nearly nothing left to his imagination, for he knows exactly what’s underneath—he’s seen and felt and savored all of it. Hitch and Sasha _had_ to have convinced her to come to this, because it’s so astoundingly unlike her to look this way, to even let him see her like that. He’s been here so many times before: Mikasa in a dress, lost, excited, gorgeous, perpetually and inexplicably bright, trying something she usually never would have.

Eren can’t help it. Her eyes are on him. 

So he runs his gaze along her body. Slowly.

And he’s pretty sure she notices.

Her curves scream through the dress, legs all sinewy and milky, the hem barely ending mid-thigh from where the rest of the fabric paints up along her body, coloring the narrowness of her waist and rib cage and the bends of her hips. Her breasts are pushed so close together and exposed enough that he can almost taste them, perked and warm inside his mouth. He nearly groans audibly when his eyes are up far enough to see the dress is sleeveless, and he’s so fucking dizzy he thinks maybe he’s finally just drunk. 

She’s right. He _is_ the horny type. 

“Mikasa.” She perks up at the sound of her name. “After this shot, you want to do something crazy?”

“Like what?”

“Dance with me.”

She stares at him. “What?”

“Dance. With me. Like we used to.”

Ymir arrives with their shots, setting them on the counter top and chanting, “Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!” 

Through the haze of noise and laughter, Mikasa looks at him, smiles, speaks.

“I’d love to.”

Then they drink. And he’s seventeen, no, sixteen again, asking the girl of his dreams to dance with him and smiling like a fool when she says yes. Smiling so hard even his dimple hurts. Smiling so much. _Smiling._

**—o—**

[](https://twitter.com/ackersthetic1/status/1312192392875839491?s=20)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, 911 is this the horny police. 
> 
> this chapter is so unabashedly self-indulgent, but it's so good to see these dorks finally fraying around each other. or, correction, seeing mikasa start to lose her shit. with 15 chapters, girl had a good run. a lot of her thoughts are reflecting ones that eren's had from the beginning. is it possible to feel two extremes at once? what else remains timeless in him? gorl. how little you know.
> 
> once again, huge tear-filled shoutout and thank you to kaz for creating such gorgeous fanart for the fic. i will NEVER get over how perfect their noses are. please be sure to follow her on tumblr [@kaziakovska](https://kaziakovska.tumblr.com/) and show some love! 
> 
> and yet ANOTHER sob-ridden thank you to [@ackersthetic](https://twitter.com/ackersthetic1) for the lovely surprise. i can't tell you how hard i squealed when i logged into twitter to find THAT! (also thanks for giving mikasa boobies, they're glorious).
> 
> like seriously, two fanarts in one chapter? chalk me up as the luckiest bitch that ever lived.
> 
> thank you for reading, and as always, feedback is very much appreciated and welcome here. your words keep the gas in the tank, as far as motivation goes.
> 
> see you next week! ♡


	16. Drops of Blood On an Endless Ocean

What is loneliness? For a long time, Eren thought the answer to this question was rather simple. 

But he’d been mistaken, of course, for loneliness isn’t equal to aloneness **—** as stupidly plain and obvious as that sounds. In fact, being lonely and being alone are two seperate things, he thought. Like what Eren is to Armin, and Armin to Mikasa, and all over and around. So different that in certain circumstances, they could even be called opposites.

Opposites. Eren was finding lots of those. 

He also found that things he thought contrasted one another, like happiness and sadness, were very much alike. He was starting to realize what true loneliness was, for he was surrounded by people at all times in exhausting and cumbersome and boring ways, and yet the void in his universe was so big, so consuming, it swallowed any sense of company granted by the warm, breathing bodies by his side.

Eren lived buried inside his own head. Deep enough to get lost.

Without Mommy, things were hollow in direly confusing ways. Drawing, video games, soccer **—** even music and sometimes even Armin and Mikasa. What once were bloated, heavy things, became futile and weightless. 

So, in the principal’s office, accompanied by his frowning father and frowning principal with his one hand bandaged up and the other pressing an ice pack to his busted lip, he felt, and was, not alone, but incredibly lonely. The principal and Dad were going on about what happened, the consequences that were to be ensued, the severity of his wounds and how to treat and fix them.

Can they fix his brain instead?

Eren wondered, sighing.

He looked up. Dust lace hung from a corner in the ceiling. In the threaded sinews, he searched for Mom. She would know what to do, he thought. What to say to him, how to calm Dad down. But she was gone, and Eren was here, and he closed his eyes because they stung with tears and Dad always taught him that men don’t cry, they swallow up their emotions and let them gnaw at them instead.

“Eren.”

He was twelve, and lonely, and not alone, but so damn lonely.

“Eren Jaeger.”

He thought of Mikasa and Armin, how they try and try and try to help but… 

“Eren!”

“What?!” he snapped. His father sighed at his tone, too weary to reprimand him.

“You understand,” said the principal, pushing his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose, “that this is your second fight this week. I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to suspend you.”

“For how long?” His father worried. He worried so often now. “He’d be all on his own at home. I’m sure you understand that. Can’t there be some other form of punishment instead?”

Eren groaned in disgust. His father, the great Grisha Jaeger, was not asking, but begging. Eren hated it when he begged. He looked so weak and clad in desperation. Mom would hate it, too. 

Mom would hate what both of them have become, actually.

Eren peered at his father through bangs that had grown too long. Dad turned his head to look at him, and he said nothing. There was nothing else to say. The principal passed the verdict: an entire week suspended from school, and Dad looked like he could cry. Eren looked away. Men don’t cry, he told himself. Men don’t cry. To some sick, twisted degree, men aren’t even human.

Monsters ate Eren up inside. They were always there, rumbling and roaring and fighting to break out. And they did. They did. They manifested as fists and kicks and bloody lips and purple eye sockets and swollen cheeks and raw, deep red trickling down his fingers. That’s what his demons were. Anger, sadness, violence. Anxiety and sleepless nights.

Can they fix his brain instead?

Eren wondered again, sighing.

Oftentimes, he did a good job of keeping the monsters at bay. But then a kid in class would provoke him, say he was the son of a woman that “probably tastes like grave” and then the ugliness would gush out, and Eren was no longer a man, no longer human. He was what his father and the principal treated him as, with scorn twisting their lips and disdain coloring their eyes. A monster.

**—o—**

In his dreams, Mom is happy.

And so is he. They’re together, talking and laughing and existing. She tells him about her day, which usually consists of lots of sleeping and amusing books and TV shows. Eren would make a mental note to read all the books and watch all the shows and chomp down every fragment he could grasp if it meant finding his mother. But then came the rude awakening, the sleepy smile that faded from his lips and the eyes that shot wide open to find his bedroom ceiling and not a single trace of Mom.

Reality hurt. Reality hurt so much that Eren was convinced staying alive would someday kill him. To an extent, he sometimes wished it would. 

He didn’t know how he did it, but he managed to live without his mother. The afternoons where Mikasa would appear at his doorstep with a smile and his homework helped assuage the pain somewhat. Her presence was a relief to him sometimes. That was nice. Maybe not enough, most days. But that was nice.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” she told him one afternoon after he’d woken from his second or third nap of the day. “I got your schoolwork. Armin says hi.”

“Where is he?” he said, stepping aside so that she could enter his home.

“Studying. Big test coming up. You know the drill.”

Ah, yes. That he did. Armin was his best friend, but when it came to schoolwork, Eren and Mikasa always came in second. 

“Mik,” Eren sighed suddenly, running a hand through his bedhead. “Can I ask you something?”

Mikasa straightened from the coffee table, where she’d set his homework down. When she turned to face him, Eren noticed a tiny, dark freckle on her cheek he had never caught before. The sun crept in through the windows, sighing around her frame, caressing her features and setting locks of her hair ablaze in red, fiery light. 

He felt a funny feeling in his belly. He was quick to shoo it away.

Eren came down on the sofa, and Mikasa followed suit. Her body sunk into the cushion beside him, nearly pulling him to her end. But he cleared his throat and scooted away, so that there was a safe space between them. So that he could cling to the comfortable place that was distance and aloneness. 

The girl looked at him, waited, blinked slowly. And Eren still couldn’t help but catch all the little things in her that had surfaced with the passing of time. Was he getting suspended so often and for so long that he’d lost sight of what she was, what she even looked like?

Staring at her, he thought of how his mother would compliment her hair, remark on how beautifully it fell down in chin-length, glossy spills she always pulled back with that single lock of hair falling out on her forehead. Her chin had sharpened, lips glossened, eyelashes elongated even more, which Eren had always thought to be impossible. Two subtle swells began to form beneath her blouse, and he’d once overheard Mrs. Ackerman complaining about having to purchase bras for a daughter that was growing far too quickly. It’d made him laugh, but now, all these changes weren’t all that funny. 

He wondered how much he had changed himself, and couldn’t help the sudden pang of knowing he was growing far too quickly as well, in ways his heart could not catch up with. He was still frozen in some fixed timeline, stuck between the empty pause where Mom was still alive and dying. She would never see how his freckles have grown sparse and giggle at his new braces that he hated and see that his eyes had changed from bright green to a softer blue.

“Eren,” came Mikasa’s voice, a whisper of calm in his calamity. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said, watching her frown.

“What did you have to ask me?”

“Do you have ballet today?”

“No. Today’s Tuesday.”

“Would you go to our bench with me?”

“Our bench?”

“Yeah, the grandpa bench. Let’s go.”

“Eren.” Mikasa placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him from rising. “You have homework to do.”

“It can wait.”

“No.”

He groaned. “Stop coddling me.”

Mikasa blinked, expressionless. “I’m not coddling you.”

“You are.”

“I’m doing what’s best for you.”

“Right now, I need a friend. Not a mom.”

“I _am_ your friend.”

“Then act like it!”

“Don’t shout at me.”

“I’m not shouting.”

“You’re shouting.”

“Oh my fucking—” Royally annoyed, Eren plopped himself back on the sofa. “You know what? Forget it. Forget I ever asked.”

There was silence. 

Scarcely anything brought Eren any peace, but Mikasa did, and when she didn’t, like right now, he seethed and frenzied. He sighed, bounced his leg up and down and felt the anger bubble and bubble, the monsters that liked to convince him to punch and hurl things and destroy cajoling and provoking him, ready to rip and sting and blow and—

Mikasa placed a hand on his leg, stilling it. “Alright,” she breathed, a tender look softening her features. She was so young. And so much wiser than him. “The grandpa bench it is.”

**—o—**

They didn’t go to their bench. Instead, they trespassed the weeping willow tree behind it and ventured into the woods until they found what they liked to call their meadow, even though it wasn’t one at all. It was a plane of grass unperturbed by trees. And that made it a meadow. Apparently.

The sun set until all that was left was the remnants of its light: soft pinks and purples that made the sky a seamless painting. If Eren’s arms were long enough to reach the clouds, they’d paint his fingertips with the iridescent ink, and those would spill from his hands like gilded tears, following the paths of past bloodshed to recolor, shift, and heal him. It was at times like that that he wished he could believe in god. Mikasa was so lucky she could do that.

This little plot of land was where they always went to stargaze. Armin was the one that discovered it a couple of years back, when they were traipsing around without their parents’ permission. Stargazing without him felt almost like betrayal. But Eren needed the stars that night. He needed them, with Mikasa by his side. Only Mikasa.

Armin was sick again. Armin was always sick.

They laid down on their backs and waited until the first few specks of white peeked through the sky. With the sun’s egress, the moon crept in slowly. The sky moved gradually, bleeding into a black, vast ocean teeming with tiny, flickering fish. Some remained exactly where they were, others swam across with lightning speed, carrying wishes the two twelve-year-olds were far too embarrassed to voice aloud.

They both closed their eyes, sealed their wishes to the sky. One of them sent their hopes to God, the other—the non-believer—sent them to the cosmos, until there were so many wishes he could no longer count them all. He wished to be happy, to be softer, to be kind. To be a better son, a better friend, a better student. For Armin to be healthy. Mikasa to remain here longer, longer, always by his side. For a moment, they shared the silence. They said nothing. 

Until, “Eren?”

“Yeah?”

“Why do you fight so much?”

He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to see the worry on her face. She always worried. “You gotta fight, remember?”

“I remember.”

“Well, that’s why.”

“Still, not everything is a war.”

“Can I ask you something, Mikasa?” he blurted suddenly, turning his head to look at her.

She smiled, probably deciding she already knew what he would ask. “Shoot.”

“Why do you love me?”

Mikasa went silent at that. 

She swallowed, and for a moment, Eren thought she would not respond. The stars whispered above them, breathing in and out, matching the slow cadence of her chest. 

He didn’t know this, but in her silence, Mikasa reminisced. She thought of the last time Eren had asked her something similar just before Carla had died. He’d asked if she loved him, and she had said yes. And the answer hadn’t changed. She suspected that it never would, for how could it? Back then, she’d stared at the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to his bedroom ceiling, and she’d professed to love him the way that stars loved the moon. 

That was two years ago. 

Two years. Already?

And now, he wasn’t asking if she did. He was asking why. _Why do you love me?_

Well…

“Why do you ask?”

Eren sighed quietly, feeling the breeze on his cheeks, ruffling his clothing. He thought of Mom. What she’d told him in her letter, how she’d promised that always, always—in the wind and the sun and whatever else ever made him think of her—that she would always be with him.

He realized then that what he was asking of Mikasa was totally unfair. One does not simply ask others why they love them then expect a satisfying answer to suffice. Especially Mikasa, a girl of such few words. So he changed the topic, tore a gash in his being and let himself pour right out.

“I’m so lost,” he told her candidly. “I feel so lost, Mikasa. So lonely.”

Her eyes on his were sad. “Eren…”

“I hate myself,” he sputtered quietly, unable to hold back. “I feel like I’m drowning. I hate that I live in my skin, that I breathe and think and stuff. I hate it, Mik. I don’t know what I’m feeling half the time but it’s so much that it drives me crazy. I hate it. I hate myself. I’m a monster and I hate it. I’m a fuck up and a mistake.”

This alarmed her. She rose to sit and peer at him through the darkness. The moonlight held her gently, illuminating the subtle shifts that moved her face. Her expression grew very serious. 

“Don’t,” she hissed. “Don’t talk like that. You’re not any of those things.”

Eren scrunched his eyes shut. He wanted to cry.

“Look at me, Eren. Look at me, please.”

He did. 

Mikasa fell back onto the grass beside him, capsizing to face him completely now. She could make out the features of his face, the tiny curves and vales that still held constellations. His breath was warm beside her, starlight welling in his eyes. It was _way_ past her curfew. Mama would be furious when she’d come back home. But she didn’t care. Not when Eren was feeling like this, not when he was looking at her like that.

“From the moment I met you,” she said, her bangs swept all across her forehead. “I knew you were special. I knew you’d change my life. And you have. Please, don’t cry.”

He hadn’t realized that he was.

Eren sniffled, clearing his throat. He held still for a moment, waited the tears away. When he felt that they had left him, he opened his eyes again, looked at his friend.

He told her, “Mik, I’ve just… I’ve been thinking. The thing is… people get sick after a while. Haven't you noticed that? Everyone leaves eventually, so really, what's the point? I mean, haven't you noticed that? Was it something you did? Is that what made you deserve this? But you always fuck up, so it _had_ to be. And that's what's really sad. When people leave, dead or alive, sick or whatever, there's no grand ceremony to help you cope, like what the funeral was for Mom, even though all loss is a sort of death in a way, I think. It's just so messed up. You don't even get a warning. Just move on. Because in the end, everything just means nothing. So why do you bother? Can't you see you don’t mean anything? You’re still so useless and nothing has changed. And if you make the mistake of getting attached, well, that's your own fault for loving people. When you're hurting for company that isn’t there, you'll understand it. We’re alone in this world. So what’s the point in fighting? What’s the point in wanting anything if you’ll just lose it in the end?”

Mikasa was the one crying now. Her words were shallow breaths. “Where is all of this coming from?”

“I’m crazy,” he breathed. “I drive myself insane. I just take and take. I’m killing my father, I know it. And I killed Mom. I kill the people I love with how much I am.”

“Have you told the therapist all this?”

“No.”

“You should,” the girl whispered. “Maybe they can help you.”

“Do you love me?”

“Of course I do.”

“I don't mean it like that. I mean—”

“I know what you mean, Eren.” she whispered, a small rivulet coursing across the bridge of her nose. Eren always made her cry. He always made her cry. She sniffled and said, “I've loved you all my life. At least, I can't imagine my life before you came into it. You've changed me and kept me company through the bad parts. You're my friend. I love you.”

Her hands found his face. She held him, thumbs wiping at his tears. Eren ached. He ached for a slice of heaven, for his mother’s touch, for hands he hadn’t felt in two whole years. But Mikasa was the closest thing to the sky that he’d been granted.

He missed Armin so much.

Why did sickness have to take everything from him?

“You always know the right thing to say,” he croaked, snot dripping from his nose.

Mikasa smiled. “Well, not always.”

“Almost always.”

“That's good enough.”

Closing his eyes, Eren melted into her hands. He was hers, all hers. And something told him that she knew that. “I'm scared,” he whispered.

“I am too,” Mikasa admitted, and this gave him consolation. He was not alone.

“The world is so big, and I am so small. I'm scared, Mik. I feel so lonely.”

“But you will fight. And you will win. And I will fight with you. I will protect you, Eren. You’re my family. You're not alone. Don't say that. I won’t get tired of you, I won’t leave you. You can always count on that.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Please, don't apologize.”

He sighed. “Okay.”

And that was when she kissed him.

Her lips on his were chaste and gossamer. Kisses on the lips were a grown-up thing, but they still did it. To Eren, it was mildly confusing at times. Did she do it because she liked him? Was it something else that surfaced with the passing of time? He could’ve just asked for clarification, but he dared not to. He didn’t want to shy her—to shy that safe and fleeting moment away. Nothing could destroy the softness of it, of her, not even his curiosity, his demands to always have to know. 

And it so often went like that: Eren and Mikasa escaped into their own corner of the world and bled to one another, until exhausted vials were all that remained of them. They were so young, far too young to have to do that. But they did it. And what a relief it was to bleed, Eren thought. With her, he could be as ugly, as monstrous, as anxious and imperfect as he truly was. 

And then they’d rise, swiff off the grass blades from their clothing, and amble on into the night, hand-in-hand. He’d walk her home, and then return to his bedroom, flip off the lights and fall asleep with the day’s clothes still on, the taste of her lips glowing on his busted, bloody mouth, like a gently crafted elixir. He needed her so badly. Needed her all the time. The sun would rise the next morning, the hours would tick away on the clock, the air would slip into his lungs as life pumped and funneled through him. And like a never-ending flame, he had to live, he had to burn, burn, burn, burn. He had no other choice. 

**—o—**

Eren healed. Slowly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, eren. the story does treat themes such as co-dependency and trauma, but sometimes his characters is so arduous to write because he carries this entire story on his back, he really does. he has complexities in both past and present, and in present chapters he's got this clueless charm and fire and destructive tendencies but in past chapters it needs to be *shown* why he is the way he is, whereas mikasa really retains much of her innocence and idealism from her childhood all the way into adulthood, so that aspect in her doesn't need to be explained.
> 
> i digress. thank you for reading, and see you next week ^^
> 
> PS. i made a twitter (hnnghh). it's @dialectuz :)


	17. And Then Everything Was Blue

Deteriorating colors manifest to a red as intense as her dress. They fill his vision. The liquid brimming his shot glass tilts to sear paths down his throat, lines that fuel to blaze and meet her cyclone of breath and motion.

Gray smoke and pearl smiles and lilac fingernails trace the crimson tint that colors his eyes. Everything is bright and great and hot and incredible. The rosy tip of her tongue peeks out and sweeps along the plush of her bottom lip, a cushion she’s quick to sink her teeth into. 

“Come on,” breathes the lisp of her voice. His hand melts into hers, rearranging itself to fit her palm like a puzzle piece. They reach the makeshift dance floor, and then her touch tears from him so suddenly he swears she takes a layer of his skin. But she makes up for it with the look in her eyes, the intoxicated grin that splits to exclaim, “Dance with me!”

Eren’s beyond drunk. He knows because he laughs a nuance louder than usual. He can’t decide on what to blame—the alcohol or the weed or whatever else is stirring in him, but he capitulates all the same, giving in to her tipsy charm and glory. 

They dance.

Somehow, without tripping over the other. 

Halfway through, he decides that she’s drunk too. She  _ has _ to be. A sober Mikasa wouldn’t be this carefree or, he daresay, this adventurous. A safe distance towers sturdily between them, but she’s the one to unroot it from the ground with a single word. 

“Closer.” 

His friends all dance around him in a twang of swinging limbs and twirling bodies, and even Annie joins them in their drunken cavort. They whisk him away and shout their drunken love for him. And Eren’s still laughing but he wants to rip free, slipping out of grips and arms to return home again. 

He’s danced with his friends so many times before. He knows how their bodies curl and resonate. But Mikasa—he’s lost the way she surges when she moves and he wants to find, to taste that again. He’s split from her for merely fractions of moments, but even that’s too long. So he comes back, and comes back, and keeps coming back to her no matter how many times Sasha and Ymir and Hitch and Reiner and Connie come to pull him away.

Mikasa likes that. 

And when she laughs, like she’s been doing so, so much lately, she prowls close enough that she can keep him, stop him from leaving her again. He can smell her perfume and her hair and her sweat. Nobody else exists, only the colors she’s emitting and whatever’s igniting every atom, every hair, every aspect of him in its lightning course with no beginning, middle, or end; Mikasa as the sole destination. 

Eren feels himself swivel, directionless, a circle that spins and spins until Mikasa forces him to land when she grabs his hands and pulls him to her, turns so that her back is at his chest. He gasps at the contact, wonders if she can feel his heart pounding at her spine, feel the blood rushing in him all the way into her veins.

They fit together so splendidly that Eren wants to cry. He’d feel pain or guilt if he wasn’t so damn happy. She captures his hands and guides them to her hips, where they anchor for what he hopes is all eternity. As if they have a mind of their own, they move up. Up. Up. They can’t fucking help it.

She throws her head to the side and he feels her waist, ribcage, arms—which fly, fling themselves behind his neck. Eren closes his eyes, thinks of how the sculptor sculpts, how every ridge and bump and conscientious curve fathoms the masterpiece. It’s as if Mikasa molds herself to fit into his palms, the way that figurines carve themselves out from the minds of artists. The work of art laughs, and she’s so out of it, but so is he, and after all those  jägerbombs , who can blame them? 

His breath steals across the sweep of her neck and he swears he sees her shiver. For a second—just a second—there’s no engagement, no past or future, no Armin or Jean. Only this. Only his hands grasping the detonating familiarity of her body, her happy little giggle before she spins to face him and look up into his eyes. And it’s as if she does this all in slow motion, her lips parted, hair tumbling to her cheek and over her naked shoulder.

Seconds pass and the music’s  _ pounding  _ in his cranium. Eren’s starting to feel sick, and he knows he’ll be blacking out later. But part of him’s convinced he’s blacked out already. For what else could conceive the way she stops moving, all of her halting to exist and glow right in front of him.

She stops smiling. Eren realizes that he’s stopped too. Swirling lights swim across her features, illuminating shadows he swears weren’t there before. Is she frowning? Is she sad? Is she scared? No. She’s the opposite of all that. Eren marvels at her bravery, the feeling of her dress lingering in his hands, staining them like a kiss they yearn to taste longer. That pesky line of hair falls over her face and he sweeps it behind her ear again, only this time he’s not sorry. Not at all. 

Like a fool, the fool he is, he looks into her eyes even though he knows they’re made to kill him. Her gaze falls to his mouth, cutting through fog and smoke to reach him. He sees her heave a sigh. Feels her do it. It isn’t until it’s blowing on his lips that he realizes his hand has stayed on her cheek, that her own has forged around his to keep him there.

Then he hesitates.

And she doesn’t move.

Her glassy eyes become too heavy, flutter shut. She tilts her head up and he dips to move closer, fall into her—so helplessly, just fall. He breathes her in, intoxicated lungs contracting, and she smells so pretty, like Chanel No. 5 and utter, pulsing bliss. A pleasure so divine he needs to close his eyes to savor it. 

Hazy, content, drowsy, his lips crawl just a breath away from hers and he’s surprised she hasn’t shied away yet. Instead, Mikasa holds still, and he’s so sure he’s dreaming. He was born for this, for this very moment. To be glad and wasted and full of jubilee and no regrets, only love. Only to burn with so, so much love for this being that holds still and—

“Mufasa!”

She jumps away, gasping.

“Mufasa! Your husband’s here!”

“Husband?” she says. “He’s here?”

Eren tenses, cheeks aflame.

“Jean,” says the woman he nearly kissed.

“I see him,” says the woman who didn’t turn away.

“Eren,” says the woman who might have let him kiss her, whose face is still in his hands. “Will you meet him?”

No. No, no, no, no, no, of course not. Eren closes his eyes, lets his hand wilt away from her like a dying flower. He— _ they _ —had felt so warm, so  _ here _ . And now, he plummets from his high so fast it makes him woozy. 

“Sure,” he says despite himself, because her eyes are pleading and god, he cannot bring himself to refuse them. He’s too high, too drunk, to fathom any objections, excuses as to why nope, sorry nope,  _ I’d rather eat literal shit than meet your soon-to-be-husband. _ But that would make her sad, and he doesn’t want that. That would make her stare at him longer, and he doesn’t want that. He sighs. “Sure, why not?”

Mikasa smiles brightly at that. And he loves that. But he hates that. Sweat glistens on the stark paleness of her chest, glinting with her every word and breath. “Come on,” she says. Her hands capture his again, and he fights the urge to drag her away, to run and run and run until the distance between her and this Jean is unfathomable. Unapologetically, he lets her lug him out and stares at her ass, smirking to himself when he thinks he’s looked long enough for Jean to notice.

But then she lets go of his hand.

To embrace her fiancé.

And Eren realizes what he’s thinking, and what a selfish, selfish ass he is. But to watch the woman he loves throw her arms around another man is to burn alive, in all fucking honesty. He pauses just a mere three feet away from the happy, stupid couple. The distance is precise, meticulously calculated to keep him safe by the only part of his mind that’s still awake. 

Mikasa stumbles into Jean and he gives a surprised cry. His voice in Eren’s ears is like nails on a chalkboard. It makes him cringe. Visibly.

“Hey, baby,” says the man. “Having fun?”

“Oh, yes,” Mikasa giggles, releasing him. “So much fun.”

“Are you drunk?”

“No.”

“You’re drunk.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Holy shit, babe. You’re drunk!”

“Hush,” she hiccups, excusing herself. 

Eren rolls his eyes so strongly he gets dizzy.

“Eren.”

He jumps.

“This is my fiancé.” Lazy hand sweep between them and, “Jean, this is Eren.”

“Ah, Eren,” says the dude, with a wide-ass smile and an offering hand. “Your brother, is he not?”

Eren frowns, his face burning hot. “Excuse me?”

“Jean thinks he’s funny,” Mikasa interjects, giving her fiancé a stern look.

“I’m only kidding,” he says. “I love messing with her.”

“Is that right?”

Mikasa tenses, her gaze falling to her feet. Eren hates that look, hates that he’s the cause of it. Begrudgingly, for her, he takes Jean’s hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you,” he slurs, tasting the sour lie.

“Likewise,” smiles the stranger. “It’s good to finally meet one of her, er… friends.”

“I bet.”

“How long have you two known each other?”

Eren flits his eyes to her then back at Jean, amused, thinking,  _ Long enough for me to take her virginity, ha ha ha—  _

“Some time,” he settles.

“For years,” says Mikasa. “We go way back.”

“Is that so?”

“It is.”

“How nice.”

“Isn’t it?” Eren grins. Suddenly, Jean squeezes his hand. It startles him. His eyes flare wide momentarily, and a challenging look hardens in the stranger’s gaze. Mikasa doesn’t see, so Eren narrows his vision, glaring at the man.

“Why don’t you go get your stuff, baby?” Jean urges her.

Blinking at him, Mikasa nods. “Be right back.” 

Then she’s gone.

Eren sniffles and wipes his hands on his jeans to rid them of the feeling of Jean, of Mikasa. He’s held them both in much too short a span of time.

“That’s quite a grip you’ve got on you,” says Jean, nodding at his scarred hand. “What do you do?”

“Martial arts,” Eren shrugs, looking away. “I box too.”

“How nice.”

“How about you?”

“Do you really care to know?”

“Nope. Not really.”

“Well, that does it, then.”

“Yep.”

“How do you know Mikasa?”

“You ask lots of questions.”

“Are you having a hard time answering?”

“Not at all.”

“Then I’m sure you can answer just one. You do know this is her first time drunk, yes?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re drunk. High, too, I would presume.”

“Oh, yeah,” Eren chuckles. “I’m fucking soaring.”

“How charming.”

“You’d know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

Jean laughs. “You’re an interesting one, Eren.”

He mumbles, “Thanks.”

“Someday,” sighs the man, fiddling with his Rolex. “I will understand what it is that draws her so much to you.”

“Well, you’re going to marry her,” Eren smiles. He can still feel Mikasa’s body pressed into his, her nails scraping at the back of his scalp, carving paths on him he’s not so sure will ever fade now. Realizing only a fraction of the severity of what had just occurred, what’s still occurring, he says, “It’d be best to figure it out soon enough.”

Jean’s jaw locks. Eren smiles brighter at that. 

He keeps wanting to look away, keeps doing it, but even in small glances and blinks, he can tell Jean hasn’t had to go a day in his life doubting himself. He’s so confident, cocky even. Everything about him is sleek and flawless. There’s not a blemish on him, not a single blister or scar. 

Eren sees the way Jean flexes his hand, veins protruding. He swallows, and he’s certain he’s actually sick now. Those very hands have touched Mikasa countless times, in ways and quantities Eren can’t control, in places he doesn’t even want to think about.

“Do me a favor,” Jean says suddenly, staring into him. Ardent gazes smolder one another. “Watch over her. Protect her, while I can’t. Please.”

At that, Eren’s mouth falls open. Nothing comes out.

“I…” Fuck. He can really feel his comedown now. Jean’s still staring at him, but when Eren lifts his eyes to meet his, he sees that they’re softer. They’re… genuine and concerned.

He sighs. “I will. Of course, always.”

“Good.” And with that, their conversation ends.

“I’m ready,” the girl appears finally, swinging her purse over her shoulder. Her hair’s back up in a bun, the pale stretch of her neck still flushed from her dancing. “Thanks for tonight, Eren,” she says with a tiny wave. “I had fun.”

He waves back. “Me too.”

And with his hand at the small of her back, Jean decides they’ve lingered long enough. He guides her away, whispering, “Let’s go, baby,” into her ear loud enough that Eren hears. He hates how he calls her that, how he holds her and pulls her away.

He hates him.

And he shouldn’t. He’s done nothing to him. Jean has just as much freedom, as much right to love Mikasa.

But he hates him.

As they leave, she looks back over her shoulder to wave again, a tipsy smile on her lips. 

And Jean does too, but to stare at him.  _ Watch over her,  _ he echoes.  _ Protect her, while I can’t.  _

_ Please. _

_ Always _ , sighs Eren’s heart, surrendering. He’s too tired to fight anymore.

“What was that?” says a voice behind him. It’s Reiner.

“Nothing,” Eren murmurs, the music swallowing his words. “It’s nothing.”

“You two looked like you were gonna, like…” His friend trails off, sleepy eyes swimming. “Heh,” he chuckles, taking a sip of his beer. “I’d rather not say.”

“Reiner.” Determined eyes dig into drunken, hazy ones. “Give me a shot.”

“Of what?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Aren’t you drunk already?”

“Not drunk enough.”

“Did that man shake you up so bad you gotta get plastered now?”

“Shut up.” He doesn’t understand. Reiner doesn’t want anyone the way Eren does. He’s lucky, unplagued by the hell that is loving Mikasa Ackerman. 

Eren’s weariness engulfs to sudden, full blown anger, and he pities himself for what he just had to live through. Tonight, he held her, nearly kissed her, then lost her just like that. Lost her again. And again and again and again, he always has to lose her. 

His chest hurts, his fury burgeons, and he wants none of that tonight. Just no more feeling, no more pain. An electricity he’s too familiar with sparks in him, and he knows he’s going manic. 

The clock strikes 11:55 PM. His friends start shouting.

Quickly, Eren skims through all the options he has to pacify the bolt of motivation, what urges him to act and act and act and feed whatever’s whetting him. He thinks of the usual's: he could smoke more, drink more, break something, fight someone, fuck someone—he decides he’ll do every single one tonight, fight and fight and fight until he’s spent and sore and exhausted from the wear and strain of all of it.

11:56 PM. They ask for him.

Where’s Eren? 

He wants to hurt himself. To take ownership of what perpetuates him. Mikasa always hated when he did that. It always broke her heart. Armin’s too. But Eren doesn’t care.

Whatever. 

He doesn’t care.

They’re both gone now.

11:57 PM. Connie points him out.

Oh, look.

Eren’s right there.

“Alright,” Reiner surrenders, noticing his agitated state. Eren can tell that he's reluctant, worried even, but his friend moves to get him more liquor all the same. 

11:58 PM. They call for him.

Eren. 

Eren, come here!

Soon, shots are being poured and glasses are clinking, toasts are voiced and necks stretch with heads that tilt all the way back, throats swallowing every last drop that scorch and wail on their way down to end in coughs and grimaces.

11:59 PM. And Bertholdt’s coming to retrieve them.

Hurry up, guys. 

It’s about to start. 

“To friendship,” Reiner salutes. Eren rolls his eyes, already deciding on another shot. They drink. And then.

12:00 AM. 

Happy New Year.

The room implodes with cheer and lights and noise and laughter. Ymir’s sucking face with Christa. Sasha’s throwing her arms around Connie with a squeal. Annie’s groaning when Hitch plants a sloppy kiss on her cheek. They notice he’s still gone.

Eren?

Just forget it. He’s fine.

Another shot. 

“To love,” Reiner dedicates their final toast, winking at him. To love.

“Fuck off,” is the last thing Eren remembers saying that night. 

**—o—**

For her first time being drunk, Mikasa is doing extremely well. Or, at least, this is what she tells herself.

She’s walking straight. Jean says she’s not, but honestly, who even asked him? His chuckles make her hiccup the occasional giggle or two, and not only is everything funnier when you’re drunk, but your body feels light yet too heavy to carry simultaneously. To be intoxicated, she philosophies, is to find the perfect equilibrium between two opposite extremes. She’d wondered back at Hitch’s if it was possible to even feel that way, to feel two opposites at once. Seems that finally, it is.

In her vague and somewhat limited experience, Mikasa has come to understand that there are five types of drunks in this world: the happy drunks, the sad drunks, the angry drunks, the philosophical drunks, and the horny drunks.

You won’t believe which one she is.

With bravery she summons from Lord-knows-where, she throws herself at her fiancé the moment their apartment door shuts, locking it behind him and crashing their lips together before he even has a chance to take in a breath.

“Babe,” he pants after a moment, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. She closes her eyes, remembering how Eren had done that. “You’re very drunk.”

She smiles sleepily, whispering a small laugh. “I know,” then she kisses him again. It’s so relieving when he kisses back. With just as much heat, as much want. She can’t remember the last time they had sex, and her intoxicated brain tells her she deserves it.

She nearly trips over her own coat on the floor, but Jean catches her, pulling her close. He’s bunching the skirt of her dress in his hands, which makes it ride up her legs—and she finds this very funny.

“Is it yours?” he questions through their kisses.

“Nope. Hitch’s.”

“Who’s Hitch?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

They kiss again, and when his hands rise to cup her breasts and his fingers contract, she hears her own moan get lost between his teeth. He’s kissing down her jawline, framing her ribcage with his hands when she turns her head to whisper in his ear, ask him to make love to her. 

He doesn’t object. 

_ Finally. _

Her eyes roll back when her back meets the sofa and he’s kissing the tops of her breasts, rucking the dress around her waist to creep a hand between her thighs. It’s when his head replaces it and she’s writhing that she thinks to prompt him further, reaching underneath herself to yank the zipper down her back. He’s the Jean she loves and remembers, strong and confident and hot, and he teases her, tonguing softly through her panties and smiling brightly when she whimpers his name.

He moves to suckle at the insides of her thighs, and she lets her eyes close, images of the night flickering behind her eyelids. Iridescent lights flood her vision then transform to a hue she knows only to belong to Eren’s eyes. Back at the party, when she’d looked up at him, when he’d come close to hold her face, all she saw was blue. Oceans, oceans, oceans. All she saw, smelled, wanted, ached for—everything was blue.

Sighing, feeling her fiancé suck a hickey on her skin, she delves into the colors and swims, feels rough hands carved around one side of her face, the sweet smell of his breath on her lips, how she’d longed to taste it, his name sitting heavy on her tongue.

Eren.

It’s the most beautiful name in the world. She could say it all night. She could paint the entire sky with just one utterance, one. Tipsy on the remnants of his presence, she smiles, heaves through thin lungs and parts her lips to call for him, her roaming hands reaching out to—

“What?” 

Jean has paused to gape at her. 

“Huh?” Mikasa raises her head, blinking down at her fiancé. “What is it?”

“What did you just say?”

“What do you mean?”

“You just…”

“What?”

“Did you just…?”

“What, Jean?”

“...call me Eren?”

She blanches. “I… What?”

“You just called me Eren.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Then what did—?”

“Air,” she deadpans, clearing her throat. “Window. Air. Open the window. That’s what I said. Let the air in.”

“Um.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m…”

“Jean,” she sits, pouting and pulling at his pants. “I’m hot. Open the window. Take my clothes off.” She can feel herself swaying, Jean’s hands trying to steady her and failing. “Please,” she breathes. “Make love to me.”

He squints his eyes at her. Then, “No.”

Mikasa gasps. “What?”

“Honey,” Jean sighs, clutching her shoulders so that she doesn’t fall back. “There’s nothing I would want more, but you’re so out of it. I can’t take advantage of you like that.”

“But, but, but I…” she stammers, blinking rapidly. “But you have my full consent!”

“Drunken consent.”

“So?”

“Nope. Won’t do it.”

“Jean!”

“A good man doesn’t take advantage of his drunk fiancée, no matter how hot she looks in her red dress. Come on.” He curves his arms underneath her, scooping her up off the sofa with a soft groan.

“Jean,” she objects weakly, melting into his arms. “But I want—”

“Shhh, it’s time for bed. We can talk about this tomorrow.”

She frowns. “Dang it.”

Jean kisses the top of her head and places her gently on their bed. She sinks into the mattress as he commences to undress her. “Up,” he asks her. “Arms up.” Soon, she’s sitting naked on their bed, watching as he searches through her cabinets for her pajamas. Unfamiliar with and too impatient to find where she keeps her things, he settles for giving her one of his own shirts instead, sighing sadly when she refuses to put it on.

“Mikasa,” he frowns, sitting by her feet. “You have to get dressed.”

She huffs. “No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Mikasa…”

“Jean.”

“What?”

“I’m naked.”

“I know.”

“I’m completely naked.”

“Yup.”

She spreads her legs.

He snaps them shut.

“Ugh!”

“Shirt,” he commands, smiling at her tiny whine. “Come on, baby. Put it on.”

Finally, she does. The scent of his clothes crawls into her nostrils, canceling out all redolence of Eren’s smell.

Did she really… moan his name instead of Jean’s earlier?

She grimaces.

Oh, God. She did, didn’t she?

Jiji bounces onto the bed, curling up beside her. Mikasa sits, studying her fiancé’s face as he tries to slide socks onto her feet, growing frustrated because she keeps wiggling her toes to annoy him. She laughs.

She just moaned Eren’s name.

She laughs louder.

Everything is so damn funny. She moaned the wrong name! And now she’s not getting laid because of it! She plops back onto the bed, clutching her belly, roaring. Jean ignores her, intent on fully dressing her. But his touch on her toes only makes her giggle even more. She’s never laughed this hard in her life; nothing has ever been this ridiculously funny. After a moment, she recovers, staring at the ceiling, her pulse thumping in her head. Thumping. Thumping. 

“Jean,” she gasps with a start, startling him.

“What?”

“I have to…”

“What?”

“I…”

“What, Mikasa?”

She opens her mouth and promptly vomits all over the carpet.

**—o—**

She’s so beautiful. 

Sweat trickles down her neck, gliding across the planes of her chest and the quaint, thin slit of cleavage. He could capture it all, the salt on her, the shapes of her, all on the very tip of his tongue. And he nearly did. Fuck, he nearly did.

In his dreams, his hands reach out to find her and they finally, finally do. Swift motions bare her to him, and she’s raw and vivid in his palms. Her pale skin is smooth and pliant in his climbing, grips and pauses lingering en route to fixed, predisposed destinations. 

The dance floor shimmers around them and morphs into his home, café walls falling away to re-erect as the boxed confinements of his bedroom. Hardwood floor softens to carpet below their feet, her back against his chest beating fervidly and solid. The arms she’s curled behind his neck hold on for dear life as his hands rise further up to dent into her, filling with the corners and the edges of her figure. His sigh sweeps across her jawline and neck, reaching past bone, tendon, steadfast to the core. And their dance is something far more intimate now, motions thrumming in an ode to things lost and all the things to come.

Eren rolls over on the bed and throws his arm around her sleeping figure, inhaling her scent. She smells of magic and last night’s booze, of love and gorgeous memory. Sighing, he opens his eyes, sees a spill of her inken hair draped across his pillow. He smiles. Closes his eyes. Sighs again. Smiles.

“Mikasa…” he mumbles quietly, feeling her stir. She moves enough that his arm falls away from her, prompting his eyelids to peel back. Blinking, he catches her visage, gapes in mild astonishment as he sees her literally transform.

Her hair turns blonde.

Her eyes, blue.

Her nose, growing three times its size.

She isn’t Mikasa. Not anymore. She’s… She’s—!!

“Annie?”

“Eren.”

“AAAHHH!!!!”

Thud.

“Ugh, fuck.”

Calm as ever, Annie watches him fret where he’d landed from falling straight off the bed. She rolls her eyes at him. “Dumbass.”

“What the— Holy f— Oh, my—” Eren pants, feeling for his clothes. They’re still on him. He sighs, relieved. He checks for the zipper of his jeans. Still zipped shut. Thank god. 

“What…” he croaks, still on the floor. “What happened?”

Annie stretches her arms over her head, yawning. “What do you mean, Eren?”

“I mean—” He goes to rise but a pang of pain in his temples cuts him short. He melts back onto the floor, groaning.

“Ah, careful,” his friend tells him. “You’re probably hungover.”

“Fuck,” he moans, squeezing his eyes shut. “I feel like shit.”

“You look it, too.”

“Did we…?”

“What?”

“You know…?”

Not one to make violent facial expressions, Annie drones, “You wish, Jaeger.”

“Not even kissed?”

“Noting as you’re still alive and breathing: no.”

“Nothing?”

“Thankfully.”

“Damn,” he blinks, scratching his belly, mildly proud of himself. “That’s a first.”

“Yes. Luckily, even wasted out of your mind, you still wouldn’t dream of sleeping with me.”

“I don’t mean—”

“I know what you mean, Eren,” she sighs. “Chill out. I only stayed the night because I was worried.”

“Worried?” Wincing, he manages to pull himself up to sit. He blinks at her bedhead, at the ambiguous mood she’s fixing him with. “Worried about what?”

Her eyes on him grow somber. And she says, “You.”

Eren scoffs. “Me? What’s there to worry about?”

Annie scoffs too, as if to say _ a lot _ . So he throws a pillow at her. 

“Relax,” she says, catching it. “You were saying lots of crazy shit and Hitch and I got worried. She offered to stay with you to make sure you wouldn’t do anything crazy, but knowing the nature of your, um, relationship… I insisted I’d stay.”

“Well, thanks.”

“You’re quite welcome.”

“What was I saying last night?”

A pause.

Eren catches how her eyes cloud over, stare off into space. He opens his mouth to say something, but Annie’s sigh comes first.

“You wouldn't want me to tell you,” she says.

“Why?”

She’s quiet for a long time, which is unusual. Even for her.

Eren moves. His hangover nearly pins him to the floor, but he rises nonetheless. His motions are languid as he climbs back onto the bed, the mattress dipping, causing Annie to sway. She still won’t budge. She’s expressionless now.

“You said you killed him,” she gives eventually, staring at her wrist brace so as to not see the way his features harden, how his gaze sinks. “You kept saying it: ‘I killed him, I killed him.’ And you cried. You cried more than I’ve ever seen you cry, Eren. You really scared me.”

“I was drunk,” he dismisses, shaking his head. “You shouldn’t have taken me so seriously.”

And with that, he goes to leave. It's her hand on his wrist that stops him.

“Eren,” Annie says, and he winces at her tone. He hates this tone. It means he’s worried her, that she’s seconds away from scolding him. But she doesn’t, instead she says, “Can I ask you something?” and doesn't wait for him to nod yes. “Did you really kill someone?”

Eren stiffens. He parts his lips to speak but… what could he even tell her? He looks away. He can’t stand the look on her face. He wonders what he must seem to her now, and is embarrassed at whatever he said last night, for breaking down the way he did. So much so that a big part of him wants to believe it never really happened. But Annie isn't a liar. Eren knows that.

_ Is  _ he a murderer?

Have the calluses of his hands ever killed? Were they acquired from taking life, instead of fighting to keep it?

“I already told you,” he says without looking at her. “I was drunk.”

Annie doesn't say anything else. Instead, she gives a rare smile and nods. Her silence is assurance enough, for she frees his wrist and rises from the bed before he does. She offers to make him breakfast, and he says yes. Sure. Why not? Her scrambled eggs are the best. As she’s whisking at the yolks, ordering him to brush his teeth and freshen up before eating, he tries to crack a joke, which doesn’t even make her smile. And he knows why.

**—o—**

Leaves, when blown by the wind in chorus, sound very much like waves. 

It's these little fragments of nature that Mikasa believes Eren was born from. From the playful games of trees and sea foam. That's why he emanates those colors, she thinks, and not one eye is identical to the other. So many shades of green and blue, vibrant and dull alike fusing and forming like tiny galaxies. She could count the stars, but she's already memorized them. Every freckle, every speck of gold, every feature of his face—memorized.

And that is why she dreams of him.

Lately, every single night.

She’s woken by the phantom songs of birds, and for a moment, she feels that she is at her parents’ house, a child rising to a new morning. But the chirping morphs to car honks, ambulance sirens, the city life activity outside. She’s in bed, in her apartment, waking from childish reveries to her fiancé calling her for breakfast. Jiji sleeps curled by her side. She rubs at her eyes, stretches and groans at the tiny pops of her joints, then rises to slide her feet into a pair of fuzzy slippers.

In the kitchen, Jean awaits. He’s made pancakes, but not the kind with chocolate chips. Mikasa loves the kind with chocolate chips.

“Good morning,” he smiles at her over his tea, and she kisses him on the lips.

“Mornin’.”

“Sleep well?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

They eat in relative silence, Mikasa cutting each individual pancake into small triangles. She pops some into her mouth and chews, groggy eyes blinking slowly.

“You threw up a lot last night,” her fiancé says.

“I’m sorry,” she says, remembering.

“Don’t be. Shit happens.”

“Right.”

The clinking of cutlery on plates and Jiji’s occasional meow is all they hear for quite a while. But then.

“Baby… Can I ask you something?”

Mikasa swallows her food, scratching the corner of her eye. “Sure.”

“Who is this… Eren to you?”

She sighs, peering down at her hands, how they hold the fork in one, the knife in the other, the half-eaten remains of her breakfast untouched in between. Well, that’s a very good question, Jean. She’s not even sure she knows how to answer it herself. 

So, Babe. Here it is:

Eren Jaeger is everything and nothing. A stranger. A friend. Bearer of no future but of all her past. He took many firsts from her, but also many lasts. Forever had once been a promise that tied their souls together and you wouldn’t like that very much. But once upon a time, six years ago, the string broke, and now here they are. Funny how life works. Forever doesn’t really mean much now, and neither does never, for she swore never to see him again, and look at what happened to that promise. To all their promises. All tossed. All discarded. Just promises.

Eren’s a freak of nature, born from contrasts and affinities. He’s so much, sometimes too much. The song of birds and leaves and the low crackle of fire, the wild burst of fireworks, the swooshing and pushing and pulling of the wind and sea. A hundred miles an hour, and it doesn’t stop. Dizzy, dizzy, dizzy. Spinning, reeling, a hurricane, a storm you can’t weather. He’s so much, Jean. He’s just too much. And he drowns you. He pulls you in, he drowns you.

“He’s nothing,” she decides, staring down at her fork. “Just a friend.”

“A friend.” 

“Yeah.”

“And you’ve known him for years?”

“Yes.”

“Which means that now, you... You’re talking to him now? Because you’ve never mentioned him, Mikasa. Have you always spoken?”

“No.”

“Have you… I don’t know, re-discovered each other in a way?”

“I…” She swallows, closing her eyes, wanting the conversation to end. “Yes, I suppose.”

“When will you go see him again?”

“Does it matter?”

“I guess it doesn’t.”

“I doubt we’ll meet anytime soon.”

“Well, you sure seem close.”

“We just have a past.”

“What kind of past?”

“A lengthy one, Jean.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Alright,” Jean scoffs, rising from the dining chair. “I’ll stop asking questions.”

Jesus. The air feels tense. Mikasa doesn’t know how to breathe it in because she’s never once argued with Jean, never even had a tense discussion. Is this what this is? Is he angry at her?

_ Stop,  _ she tells the voice in her head, the one that calls her a liar. Ever since Eren, she’s done nothing but lie to the man she swore to spend the rest of her life with. And what does that make her?

_ A slut,  _ the voice in her head purrs deviously. You’re a lying slut.

She cringes. 

_ Be quiet. _

“I’m going to the park today,” she says, pushing her plate away, hoping to alleviate the awkward atmosphere somehow. Jean turns to look at her, dropping his plate into the sink. She manages a smile. “Would you like to come?”

He shakes his head, picking at some food that’s gotten stuck between his teeth. “Can’t,” he says. He seems so annoyed at her. It makes her want to cry. “Work. I’ve got shitloads to do.”

Mikasa sighs.

Of course you do, Jean. Of course you do.

**—o—**

Murderers go to jail.

They live behind bars, caged in with their crimes. Eren doesn’t live in a cell, though. He’s got his walking, breathing body instead.

“You alright?” Annie asks him.

He sighs into his coffee.

Is he?

**—o—**

At the park, Mikasa searches for their bench. It takes her a short while to find it, to walk to it, to sit down. She’s alone. But she doesn’t mind that.

Snow clothes the city in white, lounging on the bodies of naked trees and thrumming buildings. Fragments of sunlight prick through the branches, thawing Mikasa’s pinkened cheeks. The sky is clean and blue, cleansed from a night of relentless snowing.

She waits.

For what, she doesn’t know.

And it doesn’t matter.

Maybe Eren will magically appear, pop out from behind a bush and say hi to her. She imagines the tenor of his voice, the tiny scar by his eyebrow, the rest of his unmarred, friendly face. His long hair. His eyelashes. His hands. His freckled nose.

This is their bench, and she remembers how the grandpa bench back home when they were small had been a sanctuary, an escape. Will this one be the same? It already feels like it.

She heaves a breath, taking in as much air as her lungs can manage.

And at that moment, a body appears. Sighing smoke, she studies its shape, all the nooks and crannies, how one end molds into the other. Her eyes place the pieces together, and when the man is close enough that her heart gives a sigh of recognition, she smiles, greets the old friend.

“Hello, Levi. I’ve been waiting for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof, there's literally so much happening in this chapter that i don't even know what to address. dancing. jean and eren meeting. eren getting plastered. mikasa moaning his name. annie whisking egg yolks. levi. oh, my god. so much.
> 
> nonetheless, thank you always and again for all your feedback and comments. they mean a lot and keep the updates coming, trust me.
> 
> PS. i don't know if i have mentioned this, but i do have a tumblr! my username is dialectus! i tag all my answers to fic-related things as #fic talk, so feel free to hop in and shoot me a message, if you'd like.
> 
> see you next week!  
> nati ♡


	18. The Secret Chord

Damp autumn leaves kissed the soles of her bare feet, cold and crisp, crumpling softly in mild complaints. The air was still, a faint breeze muffled by the brawny figures of aging trees. The sky, an insipid shade of gray, yawned with the approaching morning. It gazed down at her through long, scrawny branches, blessing her with soft rain. In the eerie silence of it all, Mikasa felt safe. Until—

A gasp. Soft.

Pangs of pain tore into her, snapping her awake. Sudden, arduous cramps curled in her lower belly—and that is how that new part of her life began. With tears. And blood. And a very startled Eren.

Earlier that afternoon, she'd fallen asleep on his bed during a long study session (“study session” meaning that _she_ studied while _he_ napped), when, somewhere along page sixty-four of her biology textbook and staring at the way Eren’s eyelids fluttered in his sleep, she'd been lulled into a state of unconsciousness. 

The sun was departing, making way for dusk to leak in through the clouds when she cracked an eye open to peer at the hazy furniture of his bedroom, an instinctive hand sneaking down her skirt to reach the odd, wet feeling between her thighs—the source of the pain which had awoken her. She found that her panties were damp and rough to the touch at her center, where it felt, quite honestly, like somebody had pelted her with a bat. When she sat up and blinked the haziness away, her eyes were met with her pale, shaky fingertips. And although she saw nothing on them, immediately, she felt it. 

A gush of _blood._

Mikasa ran.

It may have been her gasp of horror, or her desperate flight to his bathroom, or the boom of the door slamming shut that woke him, but Mikasa was too busy locking the door and edging the thrall of a full-fledged panic attack to worry too much about Eren's cry of surprise, the muffled thud that followed, the strings of curses that declared he'd just fallen off the bed.

“What the f—?” She hated it. “Mikasa?!” The alarm in his voice. “Is that you?”

But even more, when she pulled down her panties, sat on the toilet, and peeked at the fabric stretched between her ankles and saw that it was drenched in red, she hated just about everything in life, damned it all. Tears welled up in her eyes. Aghast, she covered her mouth so that he wouldn't hear her crying.

“Mikasa, are you okay?”

More muffled thuds and a fresh string of curses meant Eren was struggling to his feet. A few seconds later, and light from his bedroom crept into the bathroom from the crack under the door. Her heart was pounding, heated face beading with sweat, tears rolling down her cheeks by the time Eren began knocking softly.

“Mikasa?” She was utterly humiliated. “What's wrong?” If only toilets could swallow people. “Did something happen?” How nice wouldn't that be? “Mikasa…” Swallow her, toilet. Swallow her whole. “Hey, are you alright in there?”

She couldn't bring herself to answer.

Eren's raps grew to frantic pounds.

“Mikasa, talk to me!”

“I'm fine!”

“Are you sure? What happened?”

“I can't—”

“Are you crying?”

Of course, she started sobbing after that.

“Oh, my God,” she heard him breathe, and her heart sank at the thought that he'd possibly discovered the large stain she'd left on his bed. It was dark, crimson, and so gross. It humiliated her even from behind the darkness of her eyelids.

Lord. How embarrassing.

Mikasa cried even harder.

“What's wrong?” he asked, his voice very gentle. “Please, Mikasa, tell me. What happened? Why are you crying? You're scaring me.”

“You didn't see it?” she croaked pitifully. “The stain?”

“The what?”

“I just got my period, Eren,” she hiccupped, crying freely into her hands. “And I got it all over your bed!”

“Oh.” A deadpan. It made her eyes fly open. Was he grossed out?

_Is he angry?_

Her tears stuck the hairs of her eyelashes together and rolled down her cheeks, dripping off her chin.

“Is that why you're crying?” Eren voiced softly. Her ears strained to hear him well. “Did you think that I'd be mad?” Even softer now. “Talk to me.” By then, it had dwindled to a whisper, and she could tell he held his forehead to the door, pleading, “Please, Mikasa. Talk to me.”

She was quiet for some time. Sniffling. Wiping the snot on her upper lip. She hiccupped a bit more, staring at the shadows of Eren's feet under the door, which stretched and joined the darkness of his unlit bathroom. The shadow was unmoving; stubborn. Eren remained. He waited for her voice as she closed her eyes and sighed shakily, opening them to peer at the floor below her feet, trying very hard not to look at her ruined undies.

“It's embarrassing,” she murmured finally, and Eren let out a sigh of his own.

“It happens.”

“No.”

“Mik…”

“I just want to go home.”

“You can't. Your parents don't get back until ten and it's only seven-thirty.”

“I can be home alone.”

“How will you get there?”

“I'll walk.”

“Not like that you won't. I won't let you.”

“Please—”

“Mikasa, stop being ridiculous,” he huffed in frustration, and it only made her lower lip quiver even more. He sounded peeved, which prompted her silence. “Just tell me what you need. Do you need me to get you something? Pain-killers? Pads? Whatever you call those weird tubey things?”

Pfft. Weird tubey things. Despite herself, Mikasa let out a tiny snort, snot erupting out of her nose. “Tampons.” 

“Yeah, tampons. Do you need those?”

“Yes.” She wiped at her snot and tears with the sleeve of her school shirt, the area left damp. When Eren spoke again, she found a small measure of tranquility. 

What would have happened if she'd been, say, at ballet lessons right now? If she would've stayed for after-school activities? If she were anywhere but _here_? Without Eren? Sprinting out of studios and classrooms instead of his room? Granted, she still felt mortified, but her best friend (with a male reproductive system and not the slightest clue of what it was like to be in her position) consoled her.

“Okay, I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere.” The shadows vanished from the door as he turned to walk away—quickly returning, though, to add, “Wait! Do you need anything else?”

Mikasa's eyes fell to the polk-a-dot panties she'd owned since she was eleven, the mighty blotch of red staining them, the trembling of her thighs… 

“Panties?” she squeaked weakly.

“Okay, got it. Don't go anywhere. I'll be right back. Wait! What size are you?”

“Small?”

“Okay, I'll be back. Wait!”

There was silence. The liquid drip of blood meeting toilet water. 

“…Yes?”

“Are you sure that you're okay?” His mouth must've been very close to the door. It sounded like he was talking into it. The low timbre of his maturing voice rang past the wood, through the darkness, to her ears. “Will you be okay while I'm gone?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t see how she was smiling softly, sniffling in the dark. “I’ll be fine, Eren.”

“Promise me?”

“Promise.”

Then he was gone.

**—o—**

Eren absolutely hated it when Mikasa cried. With his heart thrashing about and an unspeakable desire to make all of her tears end forever and ever, he pedaled his way to town on his ratty old bike and conjured just about every question his poor young mind could fathom. 

What do girls need when they're on their period? Tampons? Pain killers? Okay. He asked a not so friendly store clerk if they knew where the ladies sanitary napkins were, and, panting, he’d thanked the rude hairless man, beelining to the desired section.

Eren wished his mother was still alive.

That way, he would've been able to call her up, ask for help. Ask her why, oh why, was there the cumbersome necessity to make tampons come in such an astonishing plethora of options—lite, regular, super, super plus, scented, unscented (what does that even mean?!), twelve pack, thirty-something pack. Jesus. Jesus Christ. He needed grace. Perhaps a miracle.

Two minutes of aimlessly pacing about the aisle, reading each brand of the weird tubey contraptions with frantic eyes lead to _another_ two minutes of an unfortunate thirteen-year-old boy nearly pulling his hairs out. Matters only seemed to get worse when he contemplated calling Mikasa, but then quickly realized that she was probably still locked in his bathroom, in the darkness, crying her eyes out and… Dear God, _they come with different insertion methods too?!_

“Armin,” he rasped into his phone. “I need you.”

 _“What is it?”_ his best friend asked from the other side of the line. Eren could tell from his voice that he was busy. Busy studying, most likely. _“Everything okay?”_

“It’s Mikasa. She’s bleeding.”

_“What!?!”_

“She’s bleeding, Armin!”

Armin sighed. _“Eren, please, calm down. I need you to explain. Bleeding where?”_

“Out of… out of her…”

_“Vagina?”_

“Dude! Oh, my god. You can’t just say it like that.”

_“Ugh, Eren. Did she get her menses?”_

“Her… what…”

_“Her period!”_

“Oh. Yeah, she just got it!”

His friend was quiet for a second. Eren could hear a faint rustling of paper, another small sigh leaving his mouth. _“And I am needed in all this because…?”_

Eren gazed at the monstrosity of the display before him, daunted eyes skimming through all the different options. “I’m at the store getting her tampons and I don’t know what to do.”

_“Okay, listen closely. Just do as I say.”_

And so he did just that. Thank god for Armin, for his intelligence, his lore on what the difference between a panty-liner and a pad is. Eren didn’t bother questioning how he knew all those things. Eren didn’t bother questioning a lot of things when it came to Armin.

He spent two weeks’ worth of allowance on her that day. Three shopping bags swung in his hands as he sprinted out of the store, and he didn't mind the curious eyes that watched him with amusement and concern, nor the trip back to his house which nearly cost him his life when a car came just a hair from his bicycle. 

But when he finally got home, and the house was all dark just like the sky save for the single lighting of his bedroom, Eren minded very much the possibility of hearing Mikasa cry again, of her painful embarrassment, of her thinking she had troubled him at all. When he knocked on the bathroom door and panted out her name, she took quite a long time to answer him.

Eventually, though, she did.

“Eren? Is that you?”

His bangs were damp and glued to his forehead. With his hands full of plastic bags, he wiped at his sweat with a forearm, heaving, “I got your things.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Open up.”

“…'Kay.”

She took a few moments to reach the door. When she did, and opened it, and looked at him through puffy reddened eyes, it hit him how pretty she looked. Even with snot coming out of her nose. Even with her hair in a frazzled mess. Even with her bottom lip all sore and ruddy from her biting into it.

“Your tampons,” he offered, clearing his throat. “I didn’t know what size to get so I got all of them. Oh, and here’s your new panties. I got you pink ones. And blue ones, ‘cause I like blue.”

Mikasa snorted softly, wiping her nose with her shirt sleeve before taking the bags from his hands. 

“Thank you, Eren.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You’re panting,” she said.

Eren shrugged. “I ran.”

“Well, don’t breathe near me.”

“Why?”

“It smells like… period blood in here.”

“I love period blood!” was what erupted from Eren’s mouth. He cringed at his own words, slapping a hand on his face in his embarrassment.

Mikasa laughed. It was light. It was breathy. “Okay, Eren.”

“Um, sorry. I’m just… nervous.”

“Why?”

He sighed, gazing down at his muddy Converse. He’d dragged dirt into his room from outside. His dad would be upset, but his dad wasn’t home, so it didn’t really matter. “I just hate seeing you cry, Mik. I really fucking hate it.”

She shifted a little, sniffling. “I’m fine.”

And with that, silence befell them. Eren lifted his gaze slowly to meet her face. And she was still sniffling, still red, still embarrassed and so damn pretty. 

“You can take a bath if you want,” he said eventually, catching his breath. “I don’t want you to be, you know, uncomfortable.”

“But I have no clothes,” the girl said sadly.

“Yeah, you do. I still got all of Mom’s clothes in my closet.”

And at that, Mikasa’s eyes widened. But Eren didn’t mind offering her his mother’s clothes because, after her death, Dad began disappearing a lot more often, escaping into his work and god knows what else. And so he gave Eren his big master bedroom and took the smaller one that belonged to him. Probably because the loss of his wife made staying in their bedroom bring back too many memories. Memories of her being healthy, healthy enough to share a bed, to lift up baby Eren, to cook and dance and sing and take showers all by herself. Who knows. But now, Eren had this huge bedroom and a bathroom all to himself and a closet with his mother’s clothes still in it because neither him nor Dad had the heart to get rid of them.

“Eren, I can’t wear her clothes,” sighed Mikasa, a thread of hair stuck to her lips.

“Why not? She’d want you to.”

“But…”

“Shut up. Go take a bath. I’m gonna go get clothes for you right now.”

“Eren—”

“I’m gonna take a big, deep breath now!”

“No!” She shut the door. “Gross, Eren!”

He laughed.

Eren really wished his mother was still alive.

**—o—**

He could see the stars blinking away from his window, the moon a fixed point no bigger than his thumb. 

It’s funny to think that this puny thing contained a force strong enough to draw literal oceans to it. People were like that sometimes, Eren thought. Mikasa was like that. Armin, too. Small, yet severe enough to draw in everything around them. 

Armin did that when he went on about outer space, the outside world, twinkling with so much knowledge. Mikasa did it just by entering rooms, for all heads turned to look at her, to stare at her blooming grace. Eren always hated when that happened. He didn’t like all the eyes on her.

He could hear her humming to herself, the water splashing softly with her every move, soft waves her gentle force created. Eren listened to her little song with his back pressed to the door. 

He’d been telling her stories, laughing as his ass went numb from sitting on the floor. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave her. He slid another square of chocolate under the door and told her not to get water everywhere when she hopped over to retrieve it before slipping back into the tub.

“Mmm,” he heard her hum. “Delicious.”

“You have problems,” Eren smirked, unwrapping his own square of chocolate. “Dark chocolate’s not even that good.”

“Well, this is coming from someone who hates chocolate, so I won’t take your word for it.”

“Shit,” he groaned, chewing. “Tastes like shit.”

“Then why do you eat it?”

“‘Cause you’re eating it.”

“But you hate chocolate, Eren.”

“Not when it’s your chocolate.”

“But you just said it tastes like poop.”

“I love poop.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

He smiled.

She hummed.

The stars kept on shimmering and shining.

Eren let the back of his head meet the door behind him, breathing, closing his eyes. For a moment, he just sat there, listening to Mikasa. And it hit him how it was only some short years ago that she’d bumbled into his life, a tiny girl made of dresses and neat little buns and soft eyes that spawned the longest eyelashes he’d ever seen on anyone. 

And now, she had boobs and a period. She was a woman! Almost as tall as him. And Eren hated that she kept growing and growing. He hated that he did, too. Maturing without his mother felt like discarding her somehow. As time went by and his features changed and his teeth straightened with his braces and his voice cracked with puberty and his adam’s apple bulged out and hair began to grow in places he couldn’t understand, the chasm between him and her memory grew evermore, a void too overwhelming for him to fill on his own.

“Hey,” Eren breathed after a while. “I have an idea.”

“Tell me.”

“You should sing.”

“No.”

“Oh, come on! I’ll sing with you.” 

“No, Eren.”

He took that as a yes. 

“Alright.” He groaned softly after some time, sitting back down with his old guitar in hand. He’d already outgrown it, his hands too large and arms too long to wield it correctly. He’d have to get a new one soon. “Alright, now. Whaddya wanna sing?”

“Nothing.”

“Leonard Cohen it is.”

Mikasa moaned, and he grinned like an idiot. His fingertips pulled at each individual string, the vibrations weaving through every chord and flowing out to dance around them. It took him a couple of minutes to get the hang of it, but eventually, Eren managed to remember the song he’d learned to play by ear. The music reached Mikasa, caressing heat onto her cheeks, moving her lips to whisper along to the lyrics.

_I heard there was a secret chord / That David played and it pleased the Lord_

_But you don’t really care for music, do you? / Well it goes like this: the fourth, the fifth_

_The minor fall, the major lift / The baffled king composing Hallelujah_

Hallelujah, she breathed. Hallelujah, closing her eyes. It was a sound full of hope and want and longing. So painfully beautiful, each lyric a confession of what silent losses don’t have the language to convey. She wondered how many voices were woven into this singular song, and the dancer in her moved, quietly, to the gentle strums from Eren’s guitar.

Suddenly, she realized she was singing. 

Eren smiled to himself, strumming away.

Her little tweet fused with his low hum, soft and sweet. They made music through the cracks of the walls, with soft splashes of water and a spine curled against the door, fidgeting every few minutes or so in discomfort. The old arms of a clock twirled, spinning to the tune the teens fathomed together, but when both hands struck nine o’clock, Mikasa’s fingertips were pruney from the water and Eren could no longer feel the lower half of his body.

Sleepy smiles touched their cheeks, satisfied at the culmination of their music. And Eren waited as Mikasa dressed herself in his mother’s old clothing. A few moments later and she was prying the bathroom door open, peeking out through a thin slit and saying, “Ready?”

Eren nodded. “Ready.”

She came out. Dressed, from head to toe, in the garments of an old ghost. 

Mikasa made the clothes come alive somehow, as if they belonged to her and only her. Her hair was loose and hung limply at her shoulders, the very tips dampened from her bath. The backs of her hands and knuckles and the very tip of her nose were all soft and sort of blushy, and Eren felt as if he was gazing at a foreign landscape. 

She’d changed too fast. Life had always been so harsh with him, toughening him out at a young age. But Mikasa was still pure in many ways, and he wanted so desperately to keep her that way: the one unsullied streak of color remaining in his life.

“Are you sure it’s okay for me to wear this?” she asked him suddenly.

“Spin,” he told her. “I can’t believe Ma’s dress fits you so well.”

So she spun, and as she did, something in Eren sort of shattered. He missed his mother. He missed her so very much. And seeing Mikasa like that, in her clothing, bathed in her scent, resurrecting the dead somehow, made him miss her even more. Need her.

If Mom were alive, and Dad were home, everything would be different.

Eren wouldn’t have had to console a crying Mikasa. She wouldn’t have had to feel so ashamed of herself for something she can’t help. He wouldn’t have had to sit on the other side of the door and play his guitar to cheer her up. 

Everything, today, and yesterday and tomorrow, would be different. She was gone and Dad was never home anymore and what was left of Eren’s family was just this roof, the floor below him, and the girl standing before him now.

“Eren. You okay?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You sort of spaced out on me.”

“Oh. I was just thinking.”

“About?”

“Nothing,” he smiled faintly. “I never think about anything.”

Mikasa’s face scrunched up. “That’s a lie.”

“Hush.”

“You hush.”

“Shh.”

“Shh!”

She punched him.

He groaned.

Mikasa had to be the strongest ballerina in existence. 

“I should go,” she breathed after a while, her fingers curling in the fabric of the dress. “It’s getting late.”

No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t even ten yet. But Eren knew what she was doing. As was her custom, once things became too much, too intense, it was time for Mikasa to retreat. The dress, the embarrassment of getting her period, the way he looked at her… All too much for her to take.

Eren wondered if she ever felt just as raw as him, if Mikasa was ever desolate or overwhelmed. She was so good at filtering and leveling her emotions. Almost all that ever came out of her was kindness and patience and a softness for the world. She lived in nuances, and sometimes, Eren had to dig around to find her.

“I’ll take you,” he said finally. And the girl was too tired to argue.

**—o—**

Thank you for walking me home, she told him.

No biggie, we’re neighbors, he said.

Be careful on your way back, she added.

I’ll be fine, he confirmed.

See you at school tomorrow, she then smiled.

And thus it went. 

And then Eren remembered that there was such a thing as school, such a thing as obligations, such a thing as a life outside of Mikasa Ackerman. A life outside of their naps and her calm eyes and smiles and burgeoning figure and chocolate squares and songs. 

Before this night, he had never felt such a strong desire to protect her. And she’d kissed him so many times before, let her hands linger in places he never allowed anyone else to touch without flinching. He’d never really felt a touch be more than just a touch, the kiss on his cheek when she said goodbye to him be more than lips on skin and breath on tendon. Until now. 

Oh, man. 

Awkwardly, he watched, she stood, and the moon hung low above them. _I love you like the stars love the moon,_ he was tempted to say then, to remind her, a small shiver in his heart fluttering awake. But he didn’t say it, for it felt too sudden, too crass—even for him. 

The vehemence of what he felt for her was frightening. Looking at her then, dressed in his mother’s clothing, nearly brought him to tears. Perhaps he simply missed his mother, or just cared a lot for Mikasa, or just… Oh, who knows? But something changed in him. Something new and quick struck a match ablaze. So, Eren did the only thing he knew how to do when his feelings seemed to get the best of him. 

He ran.

For his damn life.

He didn’t say goodbye. Suddenly, he couldn’t. Pedaling away on his bicycle, with the wind ruffling his hair and shirt and pants, he put as much distance as he could between him and the girl. Between him and his neighbor. Between him and his mother’s dress. For, at thirteen, Eren had just made a terrifying, horrific, life-threatening discovery.

He liked her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't know what compelled me to make eren realize his feelings for mikasa on the day she first gets her period but i have no regrets. 
> 
> there's still a couple more things i want to attach to some upcoming chapters, including eren's and armin's playlists (mikasa's was shared in ch 11) and an extra one for a specific chapter *cough* so i didn't want to make this too ceremonious but: i received a couple of anons (thank you!) on tumblr sharing songs that made them think of noy and so i....made....playlists....for them. eep. 
> 
> it was actually lots of fun to do, and it was so cool to see how their music playlists differ. they both have their own renditions of "hallelujah" on their playlists, too! that song's the noy anthem, as another friendly anon (thank you!) had inquired about some time ago. i'm so touched any of you care enough to ask such things.
> 
> so anyway! here's [mikasa's playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2OUsFA2YDW0u1a3FzLD1CB?si=ZSW1h7eORYmo3urOECZpHg)! i can't believe i have taylor swift in there (side eyes ayna), but i digress. "if this is it now" by birdy genuinely brought me to tears. gorgeous, gorgeous song. 
> 
> and of course, [eren's playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7bJMIg0RnTf4yD71M8sjDc?si=HvgHV7uWR42MoKJGoRiNiw)! i'm not gonna lie to you, this deadass took me a month to make because in one hand, eren plays guitar and is totally into the acoustics but in the other, he's the kind of guy that would sob into his half-eaten bowl of cheerios while blasting kanye west.
> 
> also, thank you, always, for reading and commenting. i read every word you guys share with me and most often than not, i squeal at my computer screen like an idiot. thank you, and see you next week ^^  
> nati ❤︎


	19. A Heart's Destination

What would the world be, should the sounds it breathes vanish? And what of the sky, should its lively hues evanesce? What of colors if not seen through eyes that can see, of music if not heard through ears made for hearing? Mikasa wonders, for she has loved people who’ve been stripped of these privileges. Cripples, in the eyes of some. Menders, in hers. 

And so, when Levi—with his black shades and his scars and his baton—stands before her then, she is swept with an enormous sense of reverence, overwhelmed by the presence she hasn’t felt in so long. She knows he can’t see her. And yet she smiles at him all the same.

“How did you find me here?” she asks, and Levi’s stance is placid, which is rare for someone like him. His shoulders are permanently squared, the way every soldier learns to tighten up in order to bear the great weights that are forced upon them. Yet his demeanor is tender when he responds.

“A little bird told me you’re in the city,” he says, the sound of his voice buzzing its way into Mikasa’s ears and resuscitating. “And, knowing you, I knew it was either waiting for shit not to stink or finding you myself.”

Mikasa smiles again. “It’s good to see you.”

“Yeah.” Then he sits beside her. No hug, no handshake, no ruffling of hair. Six years since she’s last seen the man and he’s still not one to show a nuance of affection. It’s hard to believe that they’re related, that he took her under his wing after her parents were gone, sending her money and adding her to his health insurance and calling her each week to check in even if their phone calls lasted up to a solid minute, at most. 

She owes so much of who she is to him and yet here they are, as if the past were made of watercolors, just a translucent smear of being and experiencing only to blot itself away. Perhaps it really is that simple. In the grand pattern of life, some people’s fates intertwine with the relative ease of two threads coming together, lines that weave parallel paths only to pattern apart. It’s in this manner that this odd family reunion emerges. With the calm sigh shared between two Ackermans, and a pair of black-haired heads collecting flakes of newly falling snow.

“You must have something you wish to tell me,” Mikasa says after a while, eyeing the scar that stretches across the bridge of his nose. And his eyes are closed, hidden by a pair of shaded spectacles. 

She studies the individual hairs of his fringe, the proud ridges of his cheekbones, the hardened features that hardly resemble her father at all. Where Dad was made of tulle and breath and light, Uncle Levi was carved from the shadows of the cruel world he was made to live in. It was difficult to gauge that they were brothers, cut from the same cloth.

He rests his baton against the edge of the bench they sit on, crossing one leg over the other. His voice is slow, perpetually tinged with that caustic undertone that hints he’s already done with the conversation before it’s even begun. If Mikasa didn’t know him so well, it might even offend her. 

“How’d you guess I came here to talk?” he says.

“Little bird told me.”

“That’s my line,” Levi huffs, and Mikasa can’t help her simper, watching how he stares straight ahead and toys with a loose thread on his coat. “I heard you’re getting married.”

“Yes, I am.”

“I don’t remember receiving a wedding invitation.”

Mikasa’s quiet for a moment, her eyes falling sadly. “I’m…”

“I get it, kiddo. I get it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. You don’t owe me anything.”

Her lips part futilely, for words are far from reach. Snowflakes fall subtly around them, silent collisions that meet the bare tree branches, the streets, their coats. She knows Levi can’t see the snow, but she wonders if he senses it. They sit so naked below its quiet rain. A flake clings to a thread of hair that’s fallen over his face, hair that’s grown long and unruly since his buzz-cut days in the military.

“You see,” one of them speaks. It’s Levi. “Before your Daddy went on and left your Mama, I made a promise to him to take care of you. And I’m still keeping my promise. Shit, if it’s the last thing I do.”

Mikasa’s features tighten at that. “I don’t need you to take care of me, Uncle.”

Levi only scoffs. “I already told you not to call me that. And perhaps you’re right. You’re a grown woman now, weeks from getting hitched. But nobody’s got to be a genius to know you’ve made a clusterfuck of your life.”

“It’s good to know you’re still eloquent as ever,” Mikasa murmurs. His smirk at that is fleeting.

“Well, let’s get straight to the point, then, shall we?”

“Please.”

Levi sniffles, fidgeting slightly on his seat. The thread on his jacket he’d been toying with dangles undisturbed for a moment, but then he is quick to meddle with it again, constantly needing to occupy himself with some sort of physical employment. Mikasa can’t remember if that is a consequence of his OCD, or PTSD, or his blindness, or all of them combined.

“You’re unhappy,” he says. “I can practically smell it on you. And Eren. He’s here. You know that, yeah?”

She nods. “I do.”

“You’ve met him.”

A whisper. “Yes.”

“He’s a hell of a lot different now, ain’t he? All grown up.”

“He really is.”

“That’s fucked up, Mikasa. You’re getting married and you’re hanging out with your ex. How do you do it?”

She scoffs. There’s her uncle for ya. Always so damn crass. “I know I shouldn’t,” she says. “I know that. It feels wrong, but…”

“But you can’t help it, can you?” It’s not even a taunt, nor a question he’d voiced hoping for an answer. Levi shakes his head, tying the loose thread he plays with into a small knot. “I’ve never been able to understand why you’re so attached to him, but I’m not surprised he’s back in your life. I always knew this would happen, considering the way things ended with you two. But I guess it doesn’t matter now. The past’s the past.”

Mikasa stares at her fingers, at her engagement ring protruding from inside her gloves. Her gaze rises to meet her uncle’s somber face. She scrutinizes him, seeking traces of Dad in his visage. But he’s not there, not even in the slightest. 

In a way, even Levi is a stranger to her now. Disconnected from her parents, her childhood. And it occurs to her that perhaps he has played a bigger role in her life than she’s given him credit for. She wonders how much of this present moment she owes to him, asking, “Levi, did you help Eren? After…”

“You dumped him?” He nods, chuckling drily. “Yeah, I did. Took him a while, but he managed to get up on his own two feet. I’m just surprised he’s stayed here all this time. I thought he’d go crawling back the moment he realized what he’d gotten himself into, but the boy’s never been one to quit.”

“Why’d you do it?”

Her uncle’s quiet for a moment. Then the sturdiness of his shoulders washes away with a long sigh. His voice is so much softer when he speaks again. “I knew, when he called me up looking for a place to stay, that I’d lost you too. And I was right. You’ve got some nerve not reaching out to your uncle all these years.”

“Levi…”

“What’s done is done.”

“I really am sorry.”

“I know.”

Mikasa bites her lip, feeling for the scarf around her neck. She’s so tempted to pour it all out, to tell her uncle that she hasn’t been herself since she severed ties with everyone all that time ago. Six years should’ve been enough to wipe the slate clean, to redesign her. But old smoke resurrects, wafting off of flames that have never truly been extinguished. She wonders if they ever even will.

How foolish of her to think she could go on pretending that her past was not hers, that her life was not hers, that all she and everyone else had ever gone through was some separated illusion. And she’s done a great job of convincing herself that she doesn’t truly exist, so much so that hearing her own name sometimes startles her. When Jean whispers that he loves her, and she hears herself answering back, it’s as if this physical realm has somehow betrayed her, pulled her back into existence without her consent. 

How can a shell ever feel anything? How could a phantom possibly love? Because in her mind, she has achieved such tragic disconnect. In her mind, she’s crafted her own small realities, where loss and pain do not exist, where loving people doesn’t equal losing them, where having a name doesn’t mean hearing it pronounced through the blood-drenched mouths of the dying. 

But then there’s Eren. 

And Armin.

And Levi. 

And this red scarf around her neck. All relics of her past that breathe and speak and remind her that she is very much here, that the course of her life is not transparent. She’s here. All flesh and bone and pulse and breath and all here.

“Eren told you where I was, didn’t he?” And she’s not one to hide her smile when her uncle grunts.

“You’re damn right he did. I would’ve ripped him a new one if he kept something like this from me.”

“Have you kept in contact with him all this time?”

Levi nods, pushing his shades further up the bridge of his nose. “Yeah. I ain’t no father, but he’s needed some guidance these last couple of years. God knows he always ends up doing whatever the hell he wants anyway. But he’s done well, made a man of himself.” He pauses for a moment. Then, “Grisha would be proud. But most importantly, Carla.”

Mikasa takes in a breath, mildly surprised at how it trembles its way into her. “That’s good to hear,” she whispers. Because Grisha once happened to her too. Carla once happened. Papa once happened. Mama once happened. Armin. Levi. Eren.

Eren… 

Eren, Eren, Eren—

“I broke his heart,” she whispers suddenly. She doesn’t clarify, but by the way Levi nods, it seems that he was already expecting her to say it. “I hurt him so much. I see it all over him when he’s near me, even when he tries to hide it. And he always tries to hide it. His friend Sasha told me he had night terrors when he got here. I remember those. He’s suffered so much and I never wanted that. I thought leaving would have the opposite effect, but I just… I traumatized him.”

“I know, Miki.”

“I never wanted that,” she repeats.

“I know. But he broke your heart too, didn’t he?”

Levi stops fiddling with the thread on his coat, and Mikasa wants to reach out and touch him. To coil her fingers around his, latch onto him the way she used to do as a child. But his nature is much colder than that. She remembers that soldiers can’t be loved like everyone else. Even tender contact can register as an assail, so she loves him through her gaze, realizing that there’s tears blurring her vision. 

Having him now beside her, smelling his familiar scent, hearing his voice and feeling his presence and breathing his air, Mikasa feels a piece of herself suddenly come back together. Because this is what it is to miss someone, to need someone, an essential piece of yourself. To find it again. Seems that lately, she’s been doing much of that.

“It’s not him I’m worried about anymore, though,” her uncle frowns, turning his head to face her. “You’re sad, Mikasa.”

She laughs ironically, gazing up at the sky. It’s all white now. An arid plane emanating little whispers of cold moisture, snowflakes that stick to her eyelashes, that tickle when she blinks. “God, I am.”

“Tell me.”

But how could she? How could she voice what she can hardly admit to herself? She closes her eyes, guarding herself from the world, from her uncle, from the truth. And still, it spills out. Because the vial of her body has grown too thin, too small to contain the aches within it: the past it lugs around and the future it can hardly convince itself to fathom.

“I thought…” It’s only a breath, but her uncle hears her. “For so long, I thought that after everything that happened, all I had to do was start anew. And now I’m exactly where I wanted to be, and yet everything feels so hollow, Levi. All this time I’ve… I’ve just meandered along, not really doing or being anything. I feel like a ghost.”

She blinks, surprised at herself. What’s happening to her? It’s one thing to feel it, but to voice her emotions aloud so candidly… Well, that’s something she hasn’t done in a very long time. 

Part of her wants to recoil, but she’s already uncapped this current, and thus, it pours, “I don’t even know how I got to this point. Starting clean, it seemed so promising. But I’m so lost, Levi. Half the time, I don’t know what I’m feeling, and the other half, I just feel nothing at all. It’s like I don’t really exist. I think back on who I was before all this mess… and it’s so hard to believe that this is it. All those years of my life spent dreaming and planning just to end up… well, to end up here.”

“And what’s ‘here’?”

“I hardly know.”

Levi inhales sharply. “Well, now you’ve moved to this big-ass city.” Her uncle smiles, but it’s half-hearted. “There’s a lot of promise and people in this place, yet you feel alone. I don’t think the problem is your life or what’s become of it, Mikasa. It’s you.”

“I know that.”

“Why  _ are  _ you here, then?”

Mikasa curls her hands into fists, the joints of her fingers popping from the cold. And it still appalls her that these are her hands, that that’s her engagement ring, that this is her body and her life and what’s become of her. When she speaks of Jean, it’s as if he doesn’t belong to her either, like he’s this faceless actor in the grand spectacle of her life. 

“My fiancé’s inheriting his father’s business,” she breathes, reminding herself of the fact. “So we’re staying in the city for a few years to start our family.”

“So you’re just tagging along till you tie the knot and start popping out a couple of kids?”

Mikasa nods. “I suppose.”

“Ain’t that ambitious.”

“It’s simple enough,” she shrugs. “I can do simple. But I never expected…” She trails off, staring ahead. 

In the distance, a child runs with its mother, and she watches how the adult chases after her little boy, scooping him up in her hands and giggling at his little squeals when she nuzzles her nose into his neck. 

Mikasa marvels, and she daren’t dream of a life like that, where chasing her own children and tossing them in the air is her method of happiness, the celebration of her life. Because how could one possibly go from here to there? From this to content? Some people were just born sad. They’ve got grief engraved in them, so wishing for something better is almost futile. Against their nature. Against hers.

She closes her eyes. Even if she was born to suffer, she must admit that she’s been blessed. Blessed with eyes that can see, with ears that can hear, with a heart that feels despite how hard she tries to numb it. Her voice is laced with steam when she speaks again. 

“I never thought I’d see him again. Eren. I was ready to live the rest of my life without him.”

“Were you really?”

“I thought so.”

Levi nods, sighing softly. “Yet here you are.”

“Yet here I am,” she laughs. A mere chuckle. “And he just… God, I can’t explain it.”

“I understand.”

“I don’t. I don’t understand anything anymore, if I’m being honest. I was fine with never having to see him again. I was fine with never having to see you either—no offense.”

Despite himself, Levi smiles. “None taken.”

“I just wanted to erase the past. I mean, all those horrible things that happened. Mom, Dad, Armin. Even you. Just… erase all of it. And my fiancé is such a good man. He loves me. He loves me so much. He wants us to live a good life.  _ I  _ want us to live a good life. Can’t that be enough? Can’t wanting something safe, something that stays for once in my life… Why can’t I just have that? Why do I feel so confused all the time? Like my heart’s being torn in half? I don’t know. And now every time I think of Eren, of visiting him or seeing him or just running into him in the streets, I feel so… so light. Like I’ve got something to live for. And that’s so messed up! I’m going to be married soon. How could I do this to my husband? How could I do this to myself?”

“Alright.” Levi holds up his hand, signaling for her to stop. “I’ve heard enough.”

Mikasa balks, ashamed of herself. It occurs to her that she’s trespassed what’s expected of her, for she knows she should be coy, quiet. A real woman is soft and meek and content with what she has despite how little it may be; that’s what Jean’s mother always says. And what does she even have to complain about? She’s engaged to a good man, has financial stability, they have a home and a cat. 

And so what if Eren’s back in her life? So what if he both enlightens and confuses her? What woes does she truly have to speak of? Her mother taught her to be graceful, to bear her burdens with strength and pride. And yet here she is cracking, a far cry from what she’s trained herself to be. Wallowing in undeserving self-pity. Confessing truths that should be kept inside.

A lip clenches between her teeth, regretful. “I’m sorry,” she breathes. And Levi groans at that.

“What’s the use? Don’t apologize. You had to get shit off your chest. There, you did it. Congrats. Now, let’s move forward.”

“I’m so— I mean, okay. Okay. I’ll be quiet.”

Levi shakes his head, sighing at his niece’s incompetence. “There’s no use in moping, Mikasa. I mean, damn. Eren was right.”

She perks up. “Eren? Right about what?”

Levi shakes his head. “You’re not who you used to be, kiddo.”

She doesn’t object, doesn’t even bother to plead her case. Gazing at the people strolling by, she says, “I don’t even know what I am anymore.”

Levi doesn’t see. He can’t see how frigid she turns, how devoid of warmth, expression. How she stares straight ahead, her eyes registering nothing.

“Why aren’t I content with what I have?” she asks him. Her lips are the only part of her face that moves.

Levi shrugs. “Because you’re not content with what you have.”

“I’m so ungrateful.”

“It is what it is.”

“The past is so painful.”

“It always is.”

“I don’t even know where to start. How do I heal it? I don’t even know where to…”

“Maybe,” Levi says, gazing up at the sky. He holds a finger up, turning his head to face her. His shades hide the sudden tenderness in his expression. He has so much patience, such eternal patience for her. “The same way you heal everything else.”

“And how’s that?”

“One snowflake at a time.”

Mikasa scoffs a little laugh. Her uncle surprises her by finding her hand. He gives it a small squeeze. “I actually… I came here to tell you something. I’m not no damn storyteller but I think this is one you’d like to hear.”

“A story?” Mikasa’s eyebrows raise when he nods. “Eren sent you here to tell me a story?”

“First of all,” her uncle objects, letting go of her hand, “Eren didn’t send me anywhere. He told me where you were. I came on my own accord, he’s got no say on what I do or don’t do. You got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Second,” he sighs, his harsh demeanor falling, “just listen to me, please. I think… this is the only way I know how to help you.”

Mikasa’s tempted to object. But she’s missed Levi. And she loves Levi. And she really, really does want his help.

“Tell me,” she whispers, and her uncle is quick to begin.

“Back in the military,” he tells her, facing straight ahead. “I knew this man. He was one hell of a soulless tank, that one. They used to call him The Devil. He was ruthless, had lots of lives stocked up under his belt. I never understood how he could just waste people like that, send them to their deaths. And for what? What were they all dying for? A country that couldn’t give a shit whether they’d ever see the sun again? It just seemed pointless to me. So when they made me captain, I must admit I felt sort of torn, kinda like how you’re feeling now. I didn’t give a shit about winning no damn war, the way he did. I just wanted my men to stay alive. No matter the cost. They had lives they needed to go back to, families. That mattered more to me than any mess our shit nation had gotten us into. So for the first few years, we didn’t get along. Took me a long time to respect him. It wasn’t until I watched him die, though, that I think I really understood why he did everything he did.”

A breath slips in between his front teeth. He brushes the scar on his nose with the tip of his fingers. Mikasa wasn’t even born back when he’d acquired it. She wasn’t even a thought at the time this was all happening to him.

Straightening, he continues. “I kinda saw how much we had in common then, and it was a lot. They shot him, practically ripped his arm off by the socket. I stayed with him while he bled to death, but I had to ask him first, just ask him why _.  _ How could he have led so many people to their graves? And you know what he said? He said he was willing to discard his own humanity if it meant preserving that of others. The guy was willing to become a monster if it meant his people could remain free, that kids could play around and women walk freely on the streets and men build homes they could be proud of. I think that was when I understood that death is just a door, you know. It’s not the end. And this shit…” He motions to their surroundings, to her sitting beside him. “God, all this. This ain’t it, Miki. This ain’t it. There’s more to everything, you know? More to life. More to why we’re here.”

Her lips split apart to speak but he cuts her off, clearing his throat. Her eyes sting again, and Mikasa realizes that for the first time in a very long time, she really wants to cry.

“Anyway,” Levi grunts, suddenly seeming tired. “What I’m trying to say is, sometimes people do things that seem soulless for the greater good. I understand why you did what you did. You just had to. Living in regret is pointless, Mikasa. It’s done.”

“Do you regret it, Levi?” she asks him. “The war? What happened to you?”

“I don’t regret a damn thing.” He faces her, pointing to the ugly gash across the bridge of his nose, the shades over his eyes. “Not even this. The course of my life has been utterly fucked, but shit had to pan out the way it did. Sometimes, I don’t really get why. But I’m here, aren’t I? And that’s worth something. Shit, that’s really worth something. Point is, Miki, you can’t live your life in regret. You gotta know that no matter what comes your way, no matter how bad it is, that you’ll be fine. You really will. I think there’s a reason you’re here now, and it ain’t got nothing to do with your marriage. But you’re scared. You’re scared because you’ve been numb for so long, that feeling alive now… that’s scary, isn’t it?”

Mikasa’s gaze softens with her smile. “I wish you didn’t know me so well.”

But Levi mustn't have heard her. “You’re a lot like your old man,” he tells her. “Brave as shit, but you’re sensitive. You gotta learn, Miki. You gotta live your life with pride, and sometimes that means discarding your humanity to do what ultimately is right.”

Inhaling ice and snowflakes, Mikasa swallows down the lump in her throat. Overwhelmed, she wipes the small beads collecting at the corners of her eyes. And perhaps it is the wind, for she hasn’t cried in ages, but the emotions she feels are so palpable now, vivid enough to truly ache and force her to feel all of it. 

She knows what her uncle is trying to tell her. She knows that he urges her to live, to honor the course of her life. Just like Mama had asked her to when she was a child. Just as Eren always told her to fight. And, in her opinion, lately, she has. She’s done just that, and look at where it’s gotten her. It’s brought her here to Levi, to a pair of foggy, clouded eyes that hide behind mantles of experience and now see nothing.

To a pair of green and blue and gold.

To dimples that smile at her with every curve of svelte lips, that utter words made to pierce straight into her, through the barricades, through the bullshit, straight to her essence. Her core.

But it is wrong. But it is _ wrong. _

“I can’t be with Eren.” It’s so plain, so colorless. A bland statement. The truth.

Yet Levi doesn’t answer, so Mikasa presses on.

“I’m engaged, Levi. I’ve made an entire life.”

“Does Eren make you happy, Mikasa?”

The question catches her off guard. She gawks at her uncle, scrambling for the correct words. The appropriate answer. The coy, womanly one.

But nothing surprises her more than her own voice saying: “Yes.” Because it’s true. “He does.” Because it’s true and it’s wrong but it’s true and Mikasa is tired, so damn tired, of being dishonest.

Eren makes her happy.

He makes her so, so happy.

And he also makes her angry. And sad. And scared. He makes her  _ feel _ and he makes her  _ question  _ and her heart’s begun to beat in this new frenzied manner that makes her wonder if it has always known to dance this way. 

“Then you gotta fight for that.” Levi finds her hand again. “You gotta hold on to every little spark you find along the way. Even if that little spark is Eren.”

She peers at his knuckles, at their scars. And they remind him so much of Eren’s hands. Of Ymir’s. Of Annie’s broken wrist. Of people who have had to fight. People who didn’t have their joys handed to them, who had to claw for them and gnaw for them with their bare teeth.

“So you think…” She hesitates, studying his face. Despite the tender way he holds her, he is expressionless. “You think I should go to him?”

Levi gives her hand a gentle squeeze. And the last time he’d held her like this, her hand had been much smaller, frailer, belonging to a girl nearly half her age. “I think you should be true to yourself and just follow your heart, Mikasa. Wherever it may lead you. Just follow it and cut the crap.”

She sighs, squeezing his hand back. “But what if it leads me to disaster?”

This time, Levi gives a hearty laugh. And it’s music. Pure, pure music. “That could very well happen. But it’s better to fuck up and earn the right to say you lived your life than to waste it away shitting yourself in a corner ‘cause you’re too scared to be somebody.”

And then, at that, Mikasa giggles. Her uncle gives a huff of annoyance, and he’s about to question what she’s all riled up about when she rests her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes. 

He tenses at the contact, but she reminds him that it’s safe, that it’s okay, that she’s so much bigger now and he’s so much older but that she’s still his little niece, the one he used to sneak chocolate bars under her bedroom door for in the middle of the night when he was visiting because he didn’t agree with Mama’s rules. The one whom he’d always warned that the world was ruthless. The one he was so harsh and unrelenting to, yet always sure to show her kindness, to show her that words aren’t always necessary to convey love. Sometimes, it is shown through sacrifice. Through the way he relaxes under her cheek when she says:

“I’ve missed you.”

Levi’s quiet for a moment. Mikasa can’t see him, but she knows he’s smiling. She can hear it in his voice.

“You’ve grown,” he croons. “You’re quite the sight, young lady.”

Mikasa snickers softly. “Uncle, you’re blind.”

“Ah,” he tells her then, his hand still in hers, her head lingering on his shoulder. “You don’t need eyes to know when something’s beautiful.”

Suddenly, she’s reminded of a story she’d heard years ago where a blind man, begging to be cured of his ailment, was denied by the messiah to have his vision restored.  _ You were made blind so that the rest of the world could learn to see through you _ , he’d told him. We are all given our burdens so that we can reap the blessings they hold in their hands.

Armin was the one who told her that.

**—o—**

Following her heart is not something Mikasa has had very much experience in doing. But she figures she can start learning now. Better late than never, is how Levi would put it.

She trudges diligently through the snowy streets, her heeled boots striking the stone path, the icy asphalt of the streets, the cracked cement of old pavement. Going, going.

This way, her heart whispers.

That way, it leads.

And onward, without question, Mikasa follows.

She giggles with abandon, liking this new dance. When the entire world’s your map, there’s no end to the possible destinations. She could hail a cab and venture outside the city, audition at the nearest theater to perform in the next play. With the entire world stretched freely below her feet, where will she go? 

What will she do?

Onward, to the stars, she decides. Blue and green and gold, they breathe. Blue and green and gold, they glow. The colors of her sky. 

Her steps grow hasty with renewed purpose. Tap, tap, tap, they drum, the whistling of the wind tickling the lobes of her ears, the tip of her nose, the rosy apples of her cheeks. 

The city clamors, trumpets of car horns blasting through the air, the violins of voices and the cellos of teeming streets. The sky soars and sings above her, a cleansed deep blue purged again from a full day of snow. Purified. Like her.

Mikasa ventures And it is then that her hand finds a door handle, that she billows, sighs, and pulls. And a small bell jingles, announcing her arrival.

It all swells in a crescendo, her heart skittering in her chest. And then, all at once, the colors flourish into being. She takes a step, two, crosses the threshold where white meets gold and gray meets green and black turns to a blue so profound it drowns her, the iridescent air all full and luminous when a familiar voice crashes against the silence with, “Mikasa?”

And she’s dancing out in space, prancing among the milky way.

“Yes. It’s me.”

With a gracious bow, the dance is over. She is here. It is final.

She is home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we are officially more than halfway through the story, and it's about time mikasa starts being brutally honest with herself. her response to her trauma/past differs greatly from eren's, because where he's all fire and presence and chaos, she goes to a place removed from reality to keep herself safe. canon mikasa can be very pure and idealistic in her mindset, so it can be challenging to capture that in our noy gorl here. but it's good to finally see eren so unfiltered through her eyes ;-; our boy.
> 
> once again, thank you for reading and commenting and dm'ing me and for the tweets and the anons and for everything, everything. i cannot repeat this enough: your feedback is what keeps the chapters coming consistently.
> 
> see you next week <3  
> nati


	20. Love And All Its Meanings

Too much had changed.

Mikasa’s body betrayed her. Somewhere along the line, it had decided to rebel. She was fourteen and terribly confused, unable to understand how it was that her breasts went from being two tiny bumps to mounds that overflowed from her cupped hands practically overnight. How it was that her hips had stretched sideways and her butt perked and swelled to the point where her pants didn’t fit her anymore. And all these sudden changes didn’t escape Mama’s eye. She gaped in awe and admiration, exclaiming that she couldn’t fathom where Mikasa inherited such virtues from. It was from Dad’s side of the family, they’d decided. Yeah. Just blame it all on him. 

Ballet became ten times harder when standing on pointe meant bearing the added weight of what her classmates liked to call “thunder thighs” and a “bubble butt” and thank God her breasts weren’t offensive enough to earn their own nickname, but those were pretty cumbersome too. Because galloping about became tedious when her chest leapt and bounced and hindered the fluidity of her movements, when her new butt practically tore her tights open and her hips could no longer emanate the illusion of a straight edge, emitting an awkward bend that hindered the finesse of her plié’s and sauté’s and just about all else that requires having an absolute lack of boobs and hips and ass and everything.

Her peers offered advice, and Mikasa was introduced to the concept of dieting for the first time in her life. They told her to give up chocolate. 

Pfft, like that would ever happen. 

She didn’t know what macros were or what sugar did to the insulin resistance in her body or any of that shebang her fellow ballerinas droned on about. They were all long and willowy and curveless, so how could they understand? Puberty seemed to have missed them. Among the fleet of perfect little leotards, Mikasa’s new body stuck out like a sore thumb. 

Eren changed, too. He didn’t need braces anymore, so his teeth were straight and shiny and pretty. He liked to show them off a lot, liked to flash them at girls and at teachers accompanied by the mischievous little twinkle in his eyes when he knew he’d gotten into trouble. He still liked to stick it to the man and play soccer and practice songs on his guitar, so not much had changed except that his voice got deeper and his body got stronger and muscles began to ripple across the length of his body. There were even rumors going around that he’d lost his virginity. And at fourteen, too!

Girls all batted and sighed over him, fanning their necks at the thought of savoring his succulent, boyish lips. The sight always made Mikasa gag. Once, when she overheard Sarah Hale speaking lewdly of the twin dimples at the small of his back and all the things she wanted to do with them, Mikasa was pretty sure that what she’d choked back was actual throw up. 

And to think she’d kissed those very lips they all thirsted for! Once, accidentally, she’d caught a glimpse of his bare ass when he was getting out of the shower while she was napping on his bed. So, in a way, she felt satisfied to be a step ahead of all the other girls, but upon realizing her emotions, she quickly gasped and shooed them away. That’s gross, she told herself. And she wasn’t like Sarah and all the others. They all glorified Eren and his abs and the fact that he had freckles on his nose and a scar on his eyebrow they thought he got as some sort of battle wound (he fell on his face trying to skid on hardwood with socks on, truth be told) and they thought that him wearing reading glasses was so adorable while, in fact, Mikasa knew he needed them because he messed up his vision during a really bad fight. Grisha grounded him for a solid two weeks after that one. 

Gosh. 

She was certain that, despite what all the other girls said, Eren had the bewildering charm of toilet paper. He didn’t know what flirting was or what a boob looked like or that half the school wanted to date him. This all led Mikasa to believe that the rumors of him losing his virginity had to be false. The boy can barely walk straight! How is he supposed to know how to… well, you know. 

Armin, however, somehow managed to still look the same. He’d only grown a couple of inches since middle school and he still sported the same hairstyle he had since he was four years old. Not one to care for looks though, he devoted his time to learning. And he loved learning. About the stars, cosmos, anything to do with outer space—or the “outside world” as he liked to call it. He often took Eren and Mikasa out on trips to their meadow in the middle of the night to gaze at the sky, pointing out constellation after constellation, telling stories of how this specific array of stars earned its name, what legend came attached to that other, and so on. He was simply brilliant. With a smile, Mikasa always acknowledged this fact, knowing that her little friend would go far in life.

That is, if his illness allowed it.

You see, throughout the years, Mikasa got curvier, Eren got stronger, and Armin got sicker. He never disclosed the name of his disease, as if declaring it would make it that much realer somehow. But it didn’t take a genius to know that it was permanent. That he was ill. And he was perpetually ill, which disturbed his friends immensely, especially since he’d begun to lose his hearing out of nowhere. Eren was especially distressed by this. Why did all the people he loved have to be sick, he’d wondered. Mikasa had to remind him that she wasn’t ill, so it wasn’t  _ all _ of them. He’d smiled real bright at that. But it hadn’t lasted long. 

Armin was very ill.

“Jeez,” he said beside her. “Don’t you at least keep books in there, Mikasa?”

She blinked at the emptiness  of her locker . “No. I prefer to carry them.”

Her friend had to sigh at that. He knew what it was to get bullied, and even though nobody tempered with Mikasa’s locker anymore, she’d gotten used to hauling all of her belongings around after getting harassed for so long. Armin could relate. He was constantly finding books missing, pages torn out of his notebooks, nasty messages scribbled on the inside of his locker door, all that fun stuff.

“Nothing,” Mikasa whispered to herself. Armin raised his brows.

With growing up, and having boobs and a butt and thighs and new hips, came love. At least, the notion of it. Mikasa wasn’t very fond of the topic herself, but when Mama sat her down one time and decided to torture her through a session of the dreaded sex talk, she’d told her that she’s coming of age. Coming of age, Mikasa’d thought. Coming of age for what? To be involved in some kind of romance? Yeah, right. She wasn’t made for that sort of thing. Perhaps Eren and Sarah Hale and all the other kids in her class were, but Mikasa wasn’t. 

Besides, it’s not like anybody liked her.

She’d be lying if she said she didn’t feel somewhat left out when school dances and Valentine’s Day rolled by and everybody had dates and gifts and even Eren, who had guffawed at the dingy stream of love letters that poured out of his locker when he’d opened it, seemed to have his own share of secret admirers. But when Mikasa had opened her own locker, all that came out was literal dust. Just the phantom wheeze of a cavernous, empty metal box.

“What?” he said. “Were you expecting a Valentine’s Day card or something?”

“I don’t know,” she answered candidly. “Just something, I guess.”

She looked at her friend. He stared back at her.

“Why do I care?” she asked him, as if caring were some terrible disease she’d been plagued with. As if he held the cure.

“You’re a girl,” Armin told her simply. “It’s only natural, I suppose.”

Then she slammed her locker door shut. The boom of it seemed to echo, and she quickly regretted her drama. Peering down at Armin, it suddenly occurred to her that she’d grown much taller than her old friend. 

Mikasa smiled softly. “So… another year of being each other’s valentines, Armin. What do you say?”

Sky blue eyes shone up at her with much delight. “Yes, ma’am!”

“Cool. May we be socially inept and romantically uninvolved forever.”

Armin laughed. It was a yelpy, breathy sort of laugh. Mikasa loved it. 

“Alright, Mik. Let’s go to class.” 

So they did. And Mikasa tried hard, very hard, to ignore the sight of Eren perched against the wall by Sarah Hale’s locker, chatting away with one of her friends, his rucksack hanging from one shoulder, a crooked smile slanting his mouth. Oblivious. Always so damn oblivious to everything. 

Eren hated Sarah, especially after what she’d done to Mikasa back in elementary school. And they were in High School now. High School! But Eren’s group of friends still hadn’t really changed, and unfortunately, Sarah came along with that pack no matter how many times he tried to ignore her and straight up pretend she didn’t exist. Mikasa was pretty sure he hadn’t said a straight word to her in years. But sadly, Carla had taught him to be a gentleman, he’d reasoned once. So he tried his hardest to be pleasant with her, even if sometimes his words came out through gritted teeth. He didn’t mind her friends though, and they certainly didn’t mind him. 

And so, walking away from the scene, Mikasa nudged Armin with her elbow and he looked up at her. She told herself that she had the best valentine of them all. And she truly did. Armin giggled at something they shared telepathically, and she started laughing too.

“I love you, Ar.”

“I love you too, Mik.”

They didn’t see how Eren kept on staring.

**—o—**

The soccer ball rolled side to side between Eren’s nimble feet. He kicked it up in the air and bounced it against his chest, letting it land on the ground before he gave it one hard kick that sent it flying into the large net that groaned as it caught the mighty blow.

“Goal!” he triumphed, throwing his hands in the air.

Sitting alone on the bleachers, Armin brought his hands together in a series of tiny claps.

“Good job, Eren!”

“What number is that?”

“Ten.”

“Goal number ten?”

“Yep!”

“Fuck yes! Ten in a row! I’m on fire!” He gave his little victory dance, an odd mixture of motions that brought his hands to his hips and made his feet move in all sorts of awkward zig-zaggy ways. The boy couldn’t dance to save his life. Armin had to laugh.

“My hero,” he crooned sarcastically. Eren gave a gracious bow.

“Thank you, thank you,” he waved to the invisible crowd. “I’ll be here all day, folks.”

Armin rolled his eyes just as Eren began to make his way towards him instead of the ball. He was shirtless, and Armin saw the way a line of muscle indented right above his shoulder, how the curve of his spine ran down his back. His taut chest gave way to the ripples of his abdomen, where a v-shape led downward along thin thatch of brown hair and dipped into his soccer shorts, all cajoling Armin to sigh to himself with green envy. His own body was a sad assembly of lanky limbs and a scrawny torso, which he thought gave off the illusion that his head was too big for the rest of him. All sorts of disproportioned, Armin was glad that he had nice eyes, at least. They were his saving grace with the ladies. And yes, that was sarcasm. But, of course, with his golden blue-green irises, Eren seemed to have beat him at that too. Even that. 

Eren was better than him at everything.

“So,” the shirtless, sweaty boy said suddenly, plopping by his side. “How’s your Valentine’s Day going? Do anything crazy?”

“You know better than anyone I don’t ever do crazy.” 

“Nonsense. You are the epitome of crazy.”

Armin sighed. There wasn’t even a tinge of seriousness in Eren’s tone that hinted he’d meant that. 

“Mikasa and I are each other’s valentines, if that implies anything reckless or spontaneous.”

“What? Again?”

“It’s our yearly tradition.”

Eren grinned, his smile shrinking his eyes and denting the skin of his cheek with his dimple. “Did you get her anything special?”

Armin shrugged. “Just her homework.”

“Ah. A true ladies man, you are.”

A mumble. “Thanks.” 

Then Eren did that really nasty thing guys do where they snort all intimate and deep in the backs of their throats and shoot out a large wad of saliva into the air and onto the ground. Armin heard it land with a hard, wet splat. He grimaced, horrified. 

“Dude, that’s disgusting.”

Eren smirked and wiped his sweaty forehead with his wrist. 

They talked. About mindless things like the weather and super important things like Mikasa and the fact that Eren managed to score ten great scores—nine, actually, but Armin let him think that the one incident where the ball had hit the railing instead of the net didn’t count as foul. 

Yet another thing Eren was better at than Armin was generally anything remotely physical. Whereas he carried himself coyly and with the awkward grace of a socially inept being, Eren was comfortable enough in his skin to just  _ be _ . You could see it in the way he talked, how he walked, just how he carried himself. He didn’t give a damn what others thought of him and that radiated such a calm aura from him. It’s no wonder everyone fell for him, despite his own belief that he was a repellant. Eren was that kind of person people just wanted to be around, but nobody dared get close enough to touch him. He was too baffling. Too good. 

And Eren wasn’t sick either.

He wasn’t losing his hearing because the cancer had begun to grow in his right ear. And he didn’t have this secret to keep quiet, because illnesses are so damn loud. How does one undergo surgery to remove a little tumor in their belly and keep that quiet? How does one find out three years later that they developed nasopharyngeal cancer and that their hearing would be the first thing to go and keep calm? How do they suppress that? Stifle it?

Eren was strong and taut and muscular and healthy. And handsome. And smart. And Armin was ill and scared and dwindling. But he didn’t tell anyone, for he simply couldn’t. They’d treat him as the sick one, the cancer patient, and Armin wanted to be treated like a person. Like a man. For disease had a way of stealing one’s integrity, of shrinking you into the colorless remnants of a once vibrant self. 

He was already enough of a burden as it was, he told himself.

Someday, he would confess to his friends. But so long as the chemo didn’t cause his hair to fall out and his nosebleeds were under control and Grandpa kept quiet, he could go on hiding it for a bit longer. Go on being Armin Arlert a bit longer.

“Eren,” he voiced eventually, interrupting the boy who’d gone on a stupor about his favorite sport. “There’s rumors going around about you.”

He only scoffed. “When aren’t there rumors going around about me?”

“These are bad.”

“Do they involve you? Mikasa?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t care.”

“Eren,” Armin shook his head. The sun outside was decreasing in fervor, whispering its final breaths throughout the sky in an array of deep, velvety colors. He stared deep into Eren’s eyes. They seemed to reflect the same richness that played out in the heavens above. “It’s really bad. People are saying you had sexual intercourse with Sarah Hale.”

Eren laughed out loud, his head tipping back with a hand flying to his stomach. “I didn’t have sexual  _ intercourse _ with that air head,” he wheezed between chortles. Armin only frowned.

“What did you have, then?”

“Sex.”

“Sex?!”

“But not with Sarah.”

“With who?”

“Don’t remember her name. She’s a senior. Real tall. Kinda goth-looking.”

Armin slapped a hand to his own face, groaning. “Eren, oh my god.”

His smile was gone by then, cheeks scratched red from all the energy he had expelled laughing. Breathless, he said, “What?”

“So you just… You had sex?”

“Yeah?”

“Just like that?”

Eren went into detail—far too much detail, if you asked Armin—about exactly what happened. 

He’d been hanging out with a couple of seniors when one of them, the cutest one apparently, had joined him in the back seat of her car. The others left to smoke their cigarettes (weed, Armin corrected in his mind, knowing Eren was just trying to save face), and the two were left alone. That’s when the kissing happened. Lots of it. And then she’d hopped on his lap and pulled a condom from her bra and, well, “popped his cherry” as he said it went.

Despite Eren’s casual attitude about the whole ordeal, Armin was dumbfounded. How could he just have sex? Just like that? And at this age? With a girl so much older than him? It just… It wasn’t like Eren to behave that way at all. He wasn’t promiscuous—even if raging hormones did come with the hefty package of growing up. It just wasn’t like him.

So why did he do it?

“To feel something, I suppose,” was Eren’s answer. “I just wanted to feel something.”

“And…” Armin started, cautious with his words. “Did it work?”

Eren smiled, but it was quick to fade. “Nah, Armin. Honestly? It wasn’t even that great. I don’t get what the big deal is. Yeah, it felt good, but it’s not like my eyes were about to pop out from how awesome it was. I didn’t see colors or stars or whatever. It was simple. Just… sex.”

Armin could only bring himself to sigh again. 

How could sex be just sex? This was another thing that led him to believe he was a weirdo. Armin felt no physical attraction towards anyone. Ever. In his fourteen years of life, he’d never had a crush or fancied holding anyone’s hand or kissing anyone’s lips or having sex with anybody. His hobbies excited him more than people did. So what was wrong with him? Was he ill in the head too? Were his hormones damaged also? Was he born with a body that liked to defy him even in that? 

“What’s the big deal?” Eren exclaimed suddenly, noticing his expression. “It’s just sex!”

“Does Mikasa know?”

“Why should she?”

“Well, I mean, I don’t know.”

Eren inhaled sharply. “I don’t think she’d be too happy to hear that I lost my virginity to a high school senior. Especially lately.” He ran a hand through his sweaty hair, plastering it to the top of his head. It poked out in damp, jagged spikes. “God, she’s being such a mom.”

Armin’s eyes went all serious and sad, voice shrinking to a whisper. “You know what’s going on in her home, Eren.”

This made him sigh guiltily. “I know.”

“She’s just protective. She feels like she’s losing her parents and we’re all she has left. I think you should tell her, especially now.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s your best friend, dude.”

“You’re my best friend.”

“So is she.”

“She will— No. I’m not gonna.”

“Eren.”

Something told him that they weren’t even talking about the same thing. Armin seemed to be pushing him about something else entirely. Uncertain, Eren let the topic marinate for a moment, rolling his tongue on the inside of his cheek. 

Finally, he said, “I don’t want her to think of me like that. I’m scared she’ll judge me.”

“She’s Mikasa. She wouldn’t ever think ill of you.”

“I know. But I still worry.”

“Why?”

He ran both hands through his hair. Messed it up more. “Because she’s all… Gah, never mind.”

Armin squinted at him. “Tell me.”

Eren straightened, his body rising with a swift intake of air. For a moment, he looked as if he was going to spill out a torrent of sentences. But all he did was deflate and rise to his feet with an insipid, “I gotta go.”

This agitated his friend immensely. Rising as well, Armin towered over him as Eren descended the bleachers. He was standing at the very bottom when Armin proclaimed, “Eren! Stop running away.”

This made him stop.

His back to Armin, he could see how he tensed, the muscles of his back coiled tight. 

“I’m not running away.” 

Armin hardly heard him. But then Eren turned around and his cheeks were ruddy and his fists were clenched and he said it again. 

“I am  _ not  _ running away.”

“You are, Eren,” Armin countered quickly. The wind tossed his hair and ruffled his clothing, chilled the sweat on Eren’s skin so that it quickly disappeared. “Ever since your mom died—”

“—Watch your mouth!—”

“—you’ve been hiding from us, Eren. Tell her the truth!”

They were both raising their voices. Their words echoed through the vacant soccer field.

“I don’t want to tell her I fucked a senior!” Eren exhorted angrily. Armin only shook his head, affirming the fact that they weren’t talking about the same thing. 

“Not that, Eren. Not that.”

“Then what?”

“The truth.” Armin descended. He was standing in front of Eren then, much taller as he remained planted on the bleachers. Despite Eren’s look of displeasure, Armin continued—gently, this time. “I think she’d really love to hear that.” He watched as Eren’s eyes widened at that, as if he’d discovered his darkest secret. Still, he said, “Tell her how you feel, Eren.” 

His bangs blew across his eyes, hiding his scowl as it gradually softened. He ran his fingers through his hair again, a nervous habit Armin knew too well. His voice was soft. So soft Armin barely heard him. “She’s so… She’s just so perfect, Ar, and I’m so…” Green eyes lifted to meet blue ones. They were dismal, wistful. “Me.”

He said it as if it were a bad thing. He said it as if Armin didn’t spend each waking moment wishing he were him. Him instead of this. Him instead of sick. Him instead of weak and soft and meek and pathetic.

“You can do it,” Armin whispered. 

“I can’t,” Eren whispered back.

“Eren, you’ve loved her since you were nine. She should know.”

“I’ve already told her I love her. Many times.”

“Not like that. You know what I’m talking about.”

Eren opened his mouth. Closed it. He wore the look of a defeated man. But Armin wondered how that could even be, for Eren fought all the time but the one thing he’d never fought for was Mikasa. Not ever. Not for what he truly wanted and felt deep inside.

For a moment, Eren contemplated denying it, negating his feelings for her—feelings that both appalled and confused him. That kept him up at night. That Armin somehow already knew about. Knew that she was the first thing he thought about when he woke up and the last thing to cross his mind before falling asleep. Knew that before he lost his virginity to Erica or Sofia or whatever that girl’s name was all he pictured was Mikasa. Mikasa’s face. Mikasa’s breasts. Mikasa panting. 

And it’s a sickness he bore with shame. How could he think of her this way? How could he play soccer or practice songs on his guitar or draw or talk to people and eat food and breathe when all he thought about was Mikasa, Mikasa, Mikasa, Mikasa. How? How did Armin know? Was it that obvious? Oh, god.

For a second, Armin believed Eren would deny it. Deny the fact that she made his knees weak and his hands tingle with the need to touch her but the fear that he would dirty her if he did. That he sat at their bench every morning waiting for their school bus with his leg bouncing up and down in anticipation because he couldn’t wait to see her. Because his days didn’t start until he saw that face. Those eyes. Those lips. That pretty little nose of hers. And they didn’t end until he walked her home, heard her voice morph and shape around the vowels of his name. They started and ended with her. He started and ended with her. He could hardly think of his life before she came into it. 

“What if I freak her out?” he asked finally. Armin didn’t even flinch.

“What if you don’t?”

“What if I scare her?”

“What if you don’t, Eren?”

“She can’t possibly… What if she doesn’t feel it too, Armin?”

“But what if she does?” He stood so close that Eren could almost feel his breath on his face. Gazing up at him, he stared at the fire in his eyes, how fervently they smoldered when he rapped, “Life is so short, Eren. So precious. And it’s just passing us by. God doesn’t care, our world was built without enough time in it, that’s all we have. You have to take your chances and seize them, make the most of every emotion that you feel. It’s such a gift to feel, Eren. To love someone. So share it! It isn’t about just sex, just kissing or kicking soccer balls and scoring points. There’s so much more to this life, and it’s all so precious. Share your feelings, Eren. Share the life in you. You’ll regret it if you don’t. So tell Mikasa how you feel. You _ have  _ to.”

Frozen, Eren gawked at his best friend. After what felt like a long time, he asked him, “Are you okay?”

Armin blinked. “What?”

“You’re talking weird.” he laughed, as if Armin had just invented everything. Him losing his virginity. His feelings for Mikasa. This conversation. “Armin, I think you need to take your meds.” He placed a hand on his shoulder, giving it a small squeeze. “Maybe take a nap?”

And of course, Eren didn’t get it. He didn’t understand a damn thing. He didn’t see that those were the words of a dying boy, that him being with Mikasa was Armin’s final wish, if anything. Because Armin lived each day as if it were his last—and it very well could be. He spoke as if each word were his last. Breathed as if his air was limited.

Because his time was limited.

Eren smiled and Armin straight up wanted to scream. He had endless years ahead of him. And it wasn’t his fault. Poor Eren. Armin couldn’t blame him, for he couldn’t possibly understand that if there were one thing Armin could do right in the time he had left, it would be to see his loved ones happy. 

Mom and Dad were gone. Gramps was only getting older. The only people he had left were Eren and Mikasa. 

And it hurt him to have this conversation, it really did, with the way it was turning out. Because why couldn’t Eren just cooperate? For once, just fucking cooperate? Grow a pair of balls and realize that not everyone had the luxury of denying themselves their feelings with the illusion of plentiful time? Some people had to run on full speed instead of neutral, burning with the vehemence of a fire that knows it will soon die out. So quickly. So simply. As if it were never even there at all. 

Armin figured that the best way to love his friends was to not burden them with the truth.

So he lied.

“Maybe I just do,” he said sadly, brushing Eren’s hand off his shoulder. He began climbing up the bleachers to retrieve his things.

“Yeah,” Eren said, watching him collect his homework and his school bag. He still wore his school uniform, and Eren almost felt bad for dragging him into the field after school to watch him play, for dodging him the way he just did. He parted his lips to apologize, ask his buddy if he was okay. But something stopped him. The way Armin carried himself then, it stopped him.

“See you later, Eren.” And just like that, he left.

Eren couldn’t fight the feeling that something was amiss, that there were things he wasn’t telling him. The sky had begun to glisten with the beginnings of dusk by the time he thought to open his mouth and call after him. But then, Armin made a turn and vanished. 

“See ya,” Eren whispered to no one, wondering how it was that his friend could go from calm to frantic in seconds, from being here to being gone. Just like that. Gone.

It scared him.

**—o—**

As soon as Mikasa got home, she heard it. 

Mama and Papa were fighting again. It seemed to be the only thing they ever did these days. Papa hardly ever raised his voice, usually it was Mama who did most of the screaming, but this time they were both going at it. Good for them, she thought. They’re equals now. 

Without a word, Mikasa made a beeline up the stairs and straight to her bedroom. She was quick to close the door, careful to make the least bit of noise possible so as to not alarm them with her presence, and shed her shoes and leotard and tights, tossing them all into the hamper before going into her bathroom to take a shower. There, in the isolation of its confines, she could try and alleviate the burden.  Under its pelting rain, she let the steaming droplets pound away at her skin. Wash it all away. Wash away the fear, the anger, the confusion that came with having two angry parents. Look at them. Things had seemed so fine this morning, too. Mama and Papa had even kissed. But now look at them and how they gnawed and clawed at one another with their poisonous words, as if their marriage vows to be gentle to each other were easily malleable, to be melted and forged and melted again.

If bipolar disorder were a relationship, Mikasa thought, her parents’ would be the epitome of it.

The water ran down her neck, back, legs, her feet, and for a moment she just stood there. Stood there until it felt like her skin would melt. And it felt good to be in this kind of pain, to have her skin flare up and turn red from the heat and she wondered if this is what love was like, if being married meant standing in the fire and accepting it willingly, wearing a smile as it ate away at your flesh.

Mikasa thought briefly of her ideas of love when she was little. At that age, nothing seemed purer, more exciting. She thought of when Eren had first kissed her, when she first met him, when they first held hands under the dinner table when Carla wasn’t looking, their little fingers laced together with promise and trust. And there was nothing to it, really. Just two small beings enjoying each other’s company. And Mikasa remembered how she’d felt then, as if everything in the world were eternal. As if even the stars above were held in space by their love, her love for Eren. And she’d decided that she would marry him someday. Because who else? Who else would she ever dream to hold hands with? To kiss? To spend the rest of her life with?

She’d been frequenting his house more after school, and she never told him why. Because her need to be beside him sometimes scared her. Because fleeing her home and her parents made her feel weak. He granted her safety amid the madness of her world. That’s why Mikasa would have rather been in his home, where there was no one but the two of them and everything was quiet. Where Eren would take naps as she did her homework and wouldn’t wake when she’d hold her ear to his chest just to hear his heartbeat, to feel it close and remember that although the world was cruel there was still hope in it. It was still beautiful. 

Mikasa contemplated this, always, with her ear against his heart, with his breaths and little snores ringing in her eardrum. She thought of this when contemplating the ferocious way Eren felt and how his heart kept beating and beating despite all the pain it hard endured throughout the years. Human resilience was truly mesmerizing like that. 

Finally, when her knees felt too weak to carry her, Mikasa shut off the water and got out. Upon catching her naked reflection in the mirror, she stared for some time.  She looked so much like her mother; s he’d inherited her gentle almond eyes, her dark night hair, her pallid skin and rosy cheeks and that family trademark of a nose that shot upwards in an impossible point. Upon observing her own reflection, Mikasa suddenly felt sad. How could two beings that loved each other enough to create her fight so much now? Was love really that fragile? 

What was love, anyway?

She hung the towel on the wall and got dressed, brushed her hair, slunk into bed and hugged Ningyo to her chest, ignoring the way she seemingly burrowed into her burgeoning bosom. She squeezed her eyes shut, Mama and Papa’s voice echoing in the distance, ringing on the walls, prowling into the depths of her being.

Love is kind, she told herself.

Love is pure.

Love never shatters, it never dies. It never dies.

And then she heard a thud. For a second, she froze, gasping. She thought it had been Mama or Papa hurling household items at one another (it had happened once before). But then she heard it again, and realized that it came from her window, sharp taps that popped every few seconds or so. A small rock hurled against the window pane.

She smiled, for she knew immediately who it was.

“Hello, Eren,” she voiced quietly after opening her window, gazing down at him as he grinned up at her from all the way down on the grass.

“Oh, Juliet, Juliet,” he said dramatically, swaying his arms and placing both hands on his heart. “Wherefore art thou, Juliet?”

“You’ve got it backwards,” she simpered. Eren only kept on grinning.

“Can I come up?”

“Yeah. But be quiet.”

“Your parents at it again?” It was more of a statement than a question, and she feared that he could hear them all the way from outside.

“Yes.” He didn’t catch when she added: “When aren’t they?” as he made his way up the side of her house, climbing up until he reached her window. It made Mikasa scoff, how good he was at climbing up her house. She thought maybe he’d just had enough practice, after all these years.

“Hold up,” she told him before he could enter her room, stopping him. She ran to her closet and plucked out a sweater, pulling it over her pajamas before slinking out the window to join him at the roof of her house, shutting it quietly behind her as if she could block the rage, the violence, keep it from spilling out through the cracks of her home and into the night where they were safe. “Let’s sit outside tonight,” she told him, which made him frown.

But Eren didn’t say anything. Maybe he knew that she wanted to be outside instead of in, as if allowing him into her home meant destroying his ideals of love also. She didn’t know that after losing a mother and having a father that was barely ever home, Eren had given up on the idea of love a very long time ago. 

Perhaps that was why it frightened him so much. 

The night was cool and calm. The moon full, stars twinkling quietly around it. Fat, black-gray clouds rolled on by, sometimes shadowing the glow of the nighttime sky. A big one was hiding the brilliant spherule above them by the time they were sitting together on the roof, the wind whispering on their skins, drying Mikasa’s damp hair from her shower, curling it around her ears and neck and cheeks.

“So,” Eren said finally, shifting so that his butt didn’t ache as much. Sitting on her rooftop was always so damn uncomfortable. “I heard you were Armin’s valentine today.”

Mikasa gave a tiny smile. “Yeah. We do it every year.”

“I heard.”

“I miss him.”

“I do, too. And we just saw him today, isn’t that crazy?”

They both smiled. But then suddenly, Mikasa seemed very serious. She gazed down at her bare feet, holding her knees to her chest. Illuminated by moonlight, she looked almost ethereal. 

“I feel like something’s wrong with him,” she said. 

Eren shrugged. “He’s sick.”

“I know, but something tells me he’s more than sick. He’s ill. Very ill.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I think he’s dying, Eren.”

At that, she felt him tense. “Don’t even say that,” he hissed. And he sounded almost angry, his voice so thin it scared her. 

Mikasa lifted her eyes to look at him, and it suddenly hit her like a wave. She wanted to cry. The rock in her throat hardened. She just wanted to cry, to let it all spill out, to no longer have to hold it all in and be so strong. She was so damn tired of being strong. 

Because time had sparrowed by and now her body was different and everything was different and Mama and Papa fought whereas once they hardly ever did and she hadn’t had enough time to accept the changes, to prepare herself for their fatal blows. Her parents’ love was dying and so was her little friend. She could see it when he winced, when he coughed copiously until he could no longer breathe, when he vomited blood out of nowhere and fainted and she had to repeat herself because he couldn’t hear her and when twin streams of crimson spilled from his nostrils. How does one love  something so fragile,  something that’s perishing? Pray for the flame to flicker on as it dies away? She wished love was enough to save people. But she knew that even fervent prayer was not sufficient, for Carla had vanished from her life as quickly as she’d swept into it. And yet she still prayed—prayed with everything in her—that Armin and her parents’ relationship would not go the same way, for she wouldn’t be able to bear it.

“You’re right, Eren,” she whispered finally. “I’m sorry.”

She wouldn’t look at him. For a second, Eren contemplated barging into her room and running downstairs to stifle her parents’ quarrel. Jesus, he could hear them all the way from out here. But he chose instead to be gentle, to ratchet his demeanor down to the quiet way he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, the soft look of surprise in her eyes when they rose to meet him.

“Hey,” he breathed, his fingers grazing her earlobe. “Come with me to our meadow. I have a surprise for you there.”

Mikasa’s brows scrunched. “A surprise? What is it?”

Eren smirked. He pulled his hand away from her with as much difficulty as if he were fighting the gravitational force of her body with his “If I told you,” he said, “it wouldn’t be a surprise now, would it?”

“Eren…”

“Cool. Let’s go!”

He hopped off the roof and to the ground below, landing with a roll. Mikasa gasped loudly, nearly calling after him when she remembered to keep her voice down, hissing, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Come on,” he said, motioning her to join him. “We have to go!”

“But…” She gazed around. “How will I get down?”

“Jump!”

“What?!”

“Jump. I’ll catch you.”

“Eren, oh my God, no.”

“Come on!”

“No!”

“Miki…” he grinned. She could see his dimple all the way from where she was. “Please.” And only her family called her Miki. Yet she couldn’t help relishing in the way his voice sounded when he’d said it. “Do you trust me?”

Of course she did. If she trusted anyone in the world—if she held hope for anyone, it was for you, Eren Jaeger.

“I trust you,” she voiced quietly. And his voice was just as soft when he spoke again. 

“Jump.”

Tentatively, she gazed behind her. For a moment, she contemplated turning back, just crawling back to bed and pretending this night never happened, as she always did when her parents fought. 

But then it occurred to her that love meant taking risks. That it meant trusting. So she tightened her sweater around her frame, rose to her feet, traipsed to the edge of the roof and without a thought, lunged out and onto Eren’s waiting arms. 

Thank God her house wasn’t that tall and she could land safely without killing him. He caught her with a grunt and they rolled on the grass from the impact, giggling like a pair of maniacs as they crawled to their feet. Then Eren grabbed her hand and they sprinted into the woods, to their meadow, where unknown mysteries lurked, waiting to be discovered.

And as her bare feet struck the cool, damp ground, happy steps thumping with every yelp and squeal that left her mouth, Mikasa felt that sometimes love meant allowing herself to grow wings and dare to soar. She remained planted on the earth, and yet, with Eren by her side, squeezing her hand and smiling at her through the darkness of the night among the gently lit tendrils of nature, it felt very much like she was flying. 

_ As long as I’m with you, I can do anything. _

**—o—**

They laid on the grass with Armin. That was her surprise, you see. The boy. 

Armin and Eren had already begun their ritualistic sleepovers, even though summer was still a couple of months away. And thus, because they had been bored and Armin had already finished all his homework and Eren couldn’t be bothered to start his, they decided to go stargazing to cheer Mikasa up. Somehow, they’d predicted that her parents would be fighting. On Valentine’s day.

There was something so gratifying about outer space. Mikasa loved the way nature just was, unperturbed, unencumbered. It grew and thrived and respired. She loved the way it could just be, how the moon knew the precise distance it needed to keep from the world and how the stars kept on shining even long after they’d died. She wished to be that way, to be remembered for her light long after leaving this world. 

It wasn’t often that Mikasa thought of death, but when she did, she always seemed to picture Armin.

“And that one over there is called Ursa Major,” he said happily, pointing up at a line of stars in the sky. They were lying on their backs with their heads nearly touching in a half-circle. Eren gave a chuckle, and Mikasa smiled at the blissful noise.

“Where’s the minor?” 

“Um—“

“I don’t get constellations,” he said. “What makes people come up with these names? If I were an astrologist, I’d name a star Mac n’ Cheese.”

Mikasa laughed out loud. 

Armin sighed. “Jesus, Eren.”

And then he went on and on about the outside world, how a planet six times the size of ours was found some lightyears away with the exact same conditions and potential for life. He wondered if it was populated, and swore to someday work with NASA and venture out of this world. Mikasa was listening intently, with the happiness that comes with witnessing someone you love talk about their passions, when she felt something warm brush the sides of her fingers and make her breathing stop.

It was Eren.

Quietly, as Armin spoke, he held her hand in his. It was such a benign, petty gesture. They’d been holding hands since they were kids. But now everything had changed. Because now he harbored feelings that boiled deep within him, that bubbled and threatened to overflow. And she had no idea.

Mikasa gave his hand a gentle squeeze, and Eren felt a jolt of electricity run all the way up his arm, to his neck, his cheeks, ears, into his brain. He closed his eyes at the sensation  of her soft skin against his. And at that instant, he felt tempted to break the silence they’d fallen into with a single utterance:  _ I love you,  _ he wanted to tell her.  _ I love you, Mikasa _ . But his sudden shortness of breath impeded the declaration. 

He couldn’t possibly do it, despite everything Armin had said. For now, he’d just have to go on being Eren. Go on being the one who’d lost his virginity only because he wanted to feel something, just… anything. Yet there was no one that made him feel as much as her. No one who spurred him on quite like she did.

Mikasa had closed her eyes.

So he watched her.

He counted each individual eyelash, wondering what they might feel like against his lips. He wallowed on the bends and edges of her face, how her chin protruded then sank down along her jaw, giving way to her long, slender throat, which led to her chest and the two subtle swells of her breasts beneath her pajamas. 

Something tickled in his gut as he watched her, and a sliver of skin poked out from under her sweater, just below her navel, where her hip bones jutted out and her stomach sank into the v between her legs. Eren already knew what was down there, but something convinced him that Mikasa was different. That the taste of her breath matched the flowery perfume of her skin, that her body was carved gentler, better, finer than the rest. 

She was still so young, just now a teenager, and it was wrong of Eren to even have those thoughts. Did Mikasa ever think that way? Did she even know what sex was? Because she was so special, so removed, Eren decided that she didn’t. She’d never been in a situation where she needed to grow up too fast. To be reckless just to feel somewhat alive. 

Sighing, Eren hoped that Armin was right. That someday, he’d be brave enough to tell her. But for now, this moment was enough. Holding her was enough. Listening to her breathing and Armin’s stories as the stars hung close above them and the wind caused them all to huddle close for warmth was alright, it was enough. He thought that maybe his entire life had led him to his point. Every step he’d ever taken guided him to this very moment, where being with his two best friends meant finding a small measure of peace among the garbled wreck of his life.

He was young and lost but, at that moment, he was happy. So happy. And he hoped that the girl with the black eyes and blades of grass sticking to her clothes was happy, too. She laid her head on his shoulder and moved ever close. It wasn’t long before his arm went numb, but he didn’t dare to move it from underneath her. Because perhaps that was what love was, discarding his own comfort and contentment to ensure hers.

Yeah, he thought with a smile. That sounds about right.

**—o—**

Mikasa came back home just as the clock struck two in the morning. It amazed her that she’d been out for so long. But, infused in the high of her recent adventure and still relishing in the aftermath of the company of her two best friends, she couldn't seem to bring herself to care.

She chose to enter through the front door this time, surprised to find it unlocked. Tip-toeing through the house, she jumped when the kitchen light suddenly went on. Mikasa stiffened, winding up even tighter when she heard her mother call her name.

“Mikasa?”

Poop. She was going to be in big trouble. 

“Yes, Mama?”

“Come here.”

Mama’s voice was small and raspy. It wasn’t until Mikasa appeared in the kitchen that she saw her mother had been crying. This both shocked and alarmed her. Something was terribly wrong. Mama hardly ever cried. 

“Sit,” her mother told her, motioning to the empty seat in front of her.

Without a word, Mikasa slunk through the kitchen and sat across from her mother on the small kitchen table they’d owned since her birth. The entire home remained the exact same way it had been since she was nine. Even her bedroom and bathroom were still pink and adorned with pastel, baby-ish colors. Not much had changed at her house, only the home’s inhabitants grew and shifted with the years. With each terrible, fuming fight.

“What’s wrong?” Mikasa asked, dreading the answer.

Mama only sighed. She was wearing her nightgown, and Mikasa watched the way her chest rose and fell beneath it, how it trembled, how red and tired her skin looked, how exhausted and spent she smelled, all worn and pale and slumped forward. Stripped of all her grace. All her splendor. And it suddenly hit her how human her mother was. All her life, Mikasa had idolized her. And now, seeing her like this, she looked so fragile. It seemed that even superheroes could be brittle after all. Even Mama.

“There’s… There’s no easy way to say this,” Mama started.

So Mikasa held her breath, ready to submerge herself in the tsunami that she knew was coming. She thought briefly of what had just occurred, contemplated interrupting Mama to share the great news, to tell her how she’d gone stargazing with her best friends and how her feet were covered in mud and she had to wash them and shower again and how Eren gave her a piggyback ride back home because he didn’t want her dirtying her crooked little ballerina toes any further. How nice was that, Mama? He carried her all the way home! She wanted to beg her to come back to normal, to be angry at her, ground her, send her to her room. But none of the scoldings ever came. 

Deflated, her mother smoothed her hair behind her ears, and Mikasa wondered when it was that she had grown too. Grown too fast. When did Mama become this old? This wasted? Even like this, though, even all broken, she was still strikingly beautiful. Still her mother. Still that fervent, fiery woman that always sat up straight and walked tall and held her head high with the pride of a being who had conquered great battles in her life. But it seemed that she hadn’t conquered this one. She was drowning. And her daughter watched helplessly, wishing she could save her.

Mikasa wept along with her when she confessed, “Your father’s gone.” 

Mikasa didn’t need any further explanation. She didn’t need to be reminded that love wasn’t real. That love meant cheating on your spouse and fighting with them and leaving them and your young daughter behind. 

Mikasa mourned for her mother, for her father, for how perfect they were as individuals but how detrimental they proved to be together after all, after everything they’d been through. And she felt terrible for her part in it, convinced it was all her fault. Convinced that if only she had warned Mama, told her of that time she found Papa with a leggy woman at a cafe kissing when she was coming out of ballet, they would’ve had enough time to fix things. 

But now it was too late. She’d kept the secret in her until it hurt enough that it burst out. And now it exploded onto all of them. It was too late to fix anything. Too late, too late.

How could all of this happen?

How was Kami so damn cruel?

How could God allow for love to perish in this way, to break a family? A father’s hands were made to build a home, not to destroy it. 

“Mama, please don’t cry.” 

Mikasa held her mother’s hand, and Mama didn’t bother hiding her tears, rivers pouring freely from her beautiful slanted eyes. And she sobbed. And she whispered, “I’m so sorry, baby.”

And Mikasa could only ask, “Are you getting divorced?”

And Mama had to say no more. Because from the way she slipped her hand away from her daughter’s grasp and held her face as she wept, her frail frame jolting with every gasp and whimper, Mikasa knew there was no such thing as perfection. No such thing as Kami being kind. No such thing as the world being eternal. No such thing as love.

It was as if she’d been truly cleansed of all feelings, of all the fear and anger and pain. Among the turmoil, Mikasa experienced a sort of emotional death. She was so distraught, so ached, that she was numb. It was as if her entire heart had been swiped away, like deep runes on a vast plane of sand smoothed flat. Like strong ink bled to a pale wash on a blank sheet of paper. Just like that. Just as suddenly. As if everything, everything. meant nothing at all. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is so paragraph-y! we really get to delve into their minds and see what life is like for them: eren's recklessness, mikasa's insecurities, armin's illness, and how they each correlate that to their own definitions of love. to be honest, this chapter was pretty difficult to write/edit. i'm not one to stray from presenting complicated themes but oof, this one presents a lot of them at once. but it's so good to have to noy boys together and to finally shine the light on armin. i'm excited tp present him further and even add some scenes to flesh him out.
> 
> big thank you to ligana for helping me edit this beefy chapter! as always, you're an incredible help (and so good at catching what i miss after my third or seventh re-read)
> 
> see you next week,  
> nati


	21. We’re Swimming Among The Stars Tonight

Eren is doing three things when he sees her.

One, he’s taking the cigarette from Ymir’s mouth and perching it between his lips to inhale a long drag that makes Sasha groan despairingly.

Two, he’s ignoring her protests when she lurches toward him to reach for it, jumping on her toes while he pulls the cigarette from his mouth and holds it high above his head, using his height to his advantage. Smoke pushes out from the corner of his lopsided smile, Ymir and Hitch grinning as their friend moans, “Seriously, Eren, you guys! You can’t smoke in here! This is _my_ coffee shop!”

And three, he’s wishing, wishing with everything in him, that Levi got to Mikasa on time. 

He’s doing all these things when the little bell at the door jingles softly, announcing the entrance of a presence that just stands there, shocked, staring at their frozen figures.

“Mikasa,” Eren breathes.

“Yes,” she smiles faintly. “It’s me.” 

With her big doe eyes and her nervous hand-wringing and her brow-scrunching that makes the little slit between her eyebrows pop out… all different aspects of her screaming at him as Eren slowly unfreezes from his position. Sasha’s quick to take the cigarette from his hands and extinguish it with an annoyed huff.

Everyone straightens, ceasing whatever they were doing to stare at her. She stands amid the chaos of last night’s party, juxtaposing the mess with her prim, quiet air. She looks so lost yet relieved upon seeing them.

She takes a step, stops, whispers so low that Eren strains to catch the words. “Are you guys… closed?”

“It’s New Year’s day!” Sasha pipes up from beside Eren, her smile warm and inviting despite the stern look she shoots at him. “We never open on New Year’s.”

“Oh.” And she tenses, wrings her hands tighter. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll be leaving the—”

“No!” Eren nearly shouts. The girls jump beside him.

Ymir, Sasha, Hitch, all stare at him.

He clears his throat.

“I mean…” And he can feel them scrutinizing him, the smile that tightens their mouths. They all stop when he spares them a sideways glance, though, looking away just as quickly as they’d laid their eyes on him.

“Stay,” he tells her gently. “ It’s okay. We were just cleaning up from last night’s party.”

Silence creeps in between them. It bloats with how her chest rises, how her teeth peek out as she opens her mouth to say… nothing. She sighs through what looks like the remnants of a smile, her eyes scrolling over the place, and they seem to all be thinking the same thing, to be reliving the events that had taken place here only some few hours ago.

The drinks, the music, the mindless, intoxicated slurs.

The bodies pressed together.

The lights. The sweat.

The way he’d asked: _Will you dance with me?_

The way she’d answered: _I’d love to._

Echoing, all echoing throughout the room.

“Well, then.” Mikasa clears her throat, mildly embarrassed. Her cheeks are scraped this gorgeous pink color and Eren just has to stare and smile at that. Then she asks, “Do you guys need any help?” The girls all open their mouths, but no words leave either of them.

They stare at him again.

Eren stands. Smiling. Still. And he can almost feel the specters of last night. Her voice fusing with the music, her body in his hands, the clumsy way they held and breathed one another. He echoes in all the places she’d touched, reverberating with warm remembrance.

_“Eren.”_

He can still hear her voice.

_“This is my fiancé, Jean.”_

Soft and breathy and solely hers.

_“It’s nice to finally meet you.”_

How wrong his own voice sounded, preceding her fiancé’s.

_“Likewise.”_

Like two beings aren’t allowed to lace her name through their lips at the same time. To love her simultaneously.

_“I bet.”_

Eren smiles brighter, because Jean may have been the one to have her last night, the one to take her home and call her his, but he can tell he didn’t do much. Because Mikasa gets all wispy and rosy and giggly after making love, and it lasts all the way into the next day. 

Chewing on his lower lip, Eren swallows down the victorious little chuckle that tingles in his throat. He knows he’s being such a little shit about all of this, but he can’t help it. 

Jean must’ve barely touched her last night. 

God. What an idiot.

Eren eyes the braid she’s woven her hair into today, how it falls over one shoulder, her slightly chapped lips and pointy nose, all the while hoping her fiancé realizes she’s the type of girl you take in slowly, with tiny interruptions to kiss the skin around her mouth, her eyes, her earlobes. All just to hear her laugh, to feel her sparkle in your hands. She gets so bright when you love her right, and that kind of glimmer takes so long to leave her. And it’s not in her today. And Eren, the dumb fuck, he just keeps smiling. 

But then he remembers how she wrenched herself free of his grip that night six years ago, and he calls himself a hypocrite, for how could he judge Jean for not loving her right when he hadn’t even known how to do it himself?

“Actually,” Sasha grins suddenly, patting Eren’s back and interrupting his stupor. “I think we could really use you, Mikasa.”

“Eren was just leaving anyway,” adds Ymir, giving him a face. He frowns, his gut swooping down with disappointment.

“Oh,” Mikasa sniffles, looking at him.

He looks away.

“I need some help baking for tomorrow, since we’re opening again,” Sasha says as she approaches her. Her hair hangs loose in damp waves around her friendly face, auburn eyes shining. They’d all showered before coming here, scrubbed off the vestiges of the past night as if cleansing into the new year. “Care to stay a while and help out?”

Mikasa surprises them all by smiling brightly in response. “I would love that.”

“Great!”

The girls resume what they were doing. Ymir’s collecting empty bottles of hard liquor and shoving them into a plastic bag, Hitch is wiping down the countertops and the chairs. She stops suddenly to look at Mikasa.

“Hey there,” she says, waving a light hand. “How are ya?”

“I’m good,” Mikasa smiles. Hitch smiles back.

“Good.”

And then she goes back to cleaning. 

Eren is the only one who stalls now. He’s staring at her as Sasha takes the broom from his hands and whispers for him to go.

He doesn’t object.

Instead, he gathers his things and pulls his coat over his shoulders just as Mikasa’s shedding hers. As she walks to enter, he moves to leave. And when they cross one another on their separate paths, she willfully brushes her shoulder against his upper arm, coat to coat, flesh to flesh, and smiles when he turns to look at her with his lips parted in surprise.

“See you later, Eren,” Mikasa says, her lips coiling around every syllable of his name.

He sighs.

“See ya.”

And goes.

She can only watch as he walks away, overwhelmed by the void that goes suddenly agape within her. For a moment, it had been filled, but she feels it drain while Eren moves across the cafe and exits the building, never turning to glance behind. Perhaps he knew that she’d be staring.

He vanishes, and Mikasa has so much she wants to tell him, so much she wants to share regarding Levi and her life and even what she had for breakfast this morning—yearning for his input in all of it. It takes nearly everything in her not to chase after him, not to relay every tiny thing in her she wants so desperately for him to hear, to see. She sighs, releasing him from herself to spin back into orbit. She’ll just have to wait and tell him later.

When Mikasa turns back around, all the girls are looking at her. Grinning from ear to ear.

“What?” she says. They only keep on smiling.

“Nothing,” Ymir is the one to beam, a dimple much like Eren’s denting the flesh of her cheek. “It’s good to see you again, Mufasa. How do you feel?”

“I feel fine,” she responds simply. And they leave it at that.

Sasha motions for her to join them, and they clean, chatting among themselves. And yet, she can’t shake the thought of Eren from her mind. Everything she’d confessed to Levi this morning, everything she’d confessed to herself. Everything she wants to confess to him.

She frowns.

_Confess what, Mikasa?_

The girls must not notice her being spacey, because they don’t comment on how she’s cleaned the same spot on the countertop thrice, too lost in her own mind to realize. 

How can one pretend not to feel the heat of summer, the luminous glow the sun emits as it shadows the moon? How do you pretend that your heart's not beating this ferociously, with the urgency of dusk when the day comes to an end, craving desperately for morning? There’s a restlessness in her, the kind that breaks through clouds of ash to rain on waiting soil, feeding all that’s yet to sprout and become.

Mikasa doesn’t even try to stifle her emotions, letting them wash out as affluently as they wish. And it’s so liberating to feel in this manner, to ache and thirst and crave this way. To ache and thirst and crave for Eren. Because his eyes have registered in her memory and so has the rest of him, so that all she can picture as she glances around is his body pressed flush against hers, their figures moving as they turn to smile at one another and she reaches out to taste a familiarity she likes to pretend is not really there. Because two people that share the past they do shouldn’t ever get this close—for that is fire, a match struck to a potent keg.

Mikasa’s willing, so willing though, to burn.

**—o—**

“I met him when he moved into our building, obviously,” Sasha’s saying, taking a sip of her soon-to-be lukewarm beer. “Y’know, since Daddy’s his landlord and all. I thought he was so hot, oh my gosh. We almost hooked up. Isn’t that crazy?”

“Hooked up as in what?” Hitch is the one to ask, giving the Solo cup in her hands a few mindless twirls. “Kissing or doing the do?”

“Kissing.”

Ymir snorts loudly.

Hitch giggles, turning to Mikasa. “Sasha’s so pure, it’s adorable.”

The aforementioned throws a beer bottle cap at her friend. Hitch dodges it, giving one of her dazzling, feline grins. 

“What? That was a compliment!”

“Yeah, right, asshole.”

They all laugh. Even Sasha.

They’re sitting in a circle on the floor, taking a break from baking and cleaning—which quickly turned to a let’s-talk-about-boys-while-drinking-leftover-beer-and-munching-on-pastries sort of business. They’re all going over how they met Eren after discussing the rest of the guys.

Hitch had gone first, recounting how she first laid eyes on him at a bar and how, after he’d walked her home, they realized they were neighbors. Out of respect for her, Eren decided it’s best they didn’t do anything, to which she’d obliged. Fast forward to some time later and alas, the inevitable happened. Friends with benefits. Yup.

She told them how it went: they’d been hanging out at her place when, upon some drunken, sudden impulse, the kissing started. Hitch said he kept interrupting to ask if it was okay, how angry that made her, how baffled she was when he kissed her cheeks, her eyelids, he was so attentive. She yelled at him when she saw his eight-pack, almost smacked him over the head for being stellar at oral because it was all so utterly unfair. He was careful but matched her when she grew hasty and impatient—and all of this, while drunk off his ass! Mikasa had to admit she felt herself blushing furiously at that. 

But anyway.

Ymir met him at work, as they both practice martial arts and train children. Mikasa thought that to be adorable, picturing Ymir ratcheting down her coarse demeanor to be milder with the kids. Or was she still crass? That’d be kind of funny. She knows Eren is a gentle teacher, though. Very gentle.

Sasha’s going over how everyone swears they’re siblings now and how they tend to just roll along with it when Mikasa takes a sip of the hot chocolate in her hands, simpering at the mental picture of Eren Jaeger with a little sister. If Carla had lived long enough, she thinks, he could’ve definitely had one.

“Isn’t that wild?” Ymir says suddenly. “I feel like most of the girls met him in some odd, near-hook up scenario. Except me. Since I’m, you know, gay as shit.”

“You _are_ gay as shit,” Hitch concurs.

Ymir nods. “Yes, thank you.”

“I honestly, despite all physical proof, don’t think Eren’s that much of a horn-ball.”

Hitch snorts. “Okay.”

“No, I’m serious!” Sasha squeaks. “I just think it’s where he goes when he’s feeling numb. He even told me that once. Eren isn’t promiscuous.”

“Yeah, _that_ part is true,” Hitch is saying now. “He’s totes the type to stick to one person. Which is kinda nice, not gonna lie. More availability. Plus, loyalty’s super hot. You could tap that 24/7 if you wanted to.” 

Sasha groans, expressing everyone’s collective displeasure at that. “Hitch…”

“I think, though,” she purrs then, lounging on the floor and blowing a fleck of confetti from her fingertip, “that out of all of us, Annie is the one with the most interesting story.”

“Annie?” Mikasa peeps, licking a drop of hot chocolate off her bottom lip. “What happened?”

“Well,” Hitch begins, but Ymir is quick to interrupt, claiming that she was there so she should be the one to tell the story.

“He beat the living shit out of her dad,” she says. “It was wild.”

Mikasa’s eyes widen. “He what?”

“Yep.” Ymir laughs, but the topic proves not to be all that funny. “Annie’s been training since she was just a girl, so I’ve known her for ages. But even _I_ can say I was starting to get worried. She’d come all beat up, and we all knew those bruises didn’t come from practice. So one day, shit just got bad.” 

Mikasa sees the way Ymir’s smile fades. All of the girls seem to go serious.

“Annie came over to Sasha’s place one night while I was there. She was… a wreck. I’ve never seen Annie like that. Even Bert and Blondie Pecks had to come over. Eren went down to help us, too, and that’s when her dad showed up looking for her.”

Sasha gives a sad sigh. “It was horrible.”

“Yeah,” Ymir scoffs. “It’s totally fucked. The dude was so violent and drunk. But Eren just kinda held him off. He didn’t do anything to him until… I dunno, man. I just remember Annie’s dad yelling that he was going to kill her for telling people, and I think Eren must’ve seen the look on her face or something, because next thing we knew, he started beating the shit out of him.”

“Jesus,” Mikasa gasps.

“Yeah,” Sasha says, starting on her third or fourth cookie. “But good thing he did that! Annie’s dad never came back after that. Eren really fucked him up. The guys all had to come out to stop him. And what was Annie’s dad gonna do? Call the cops? When there was so much proof of what he’d done to her? Anyways, that’s how that story goes. And we’re all glad it’s over.”

“Yep,” Hitch says. “She lived with Eren for a bit, then with me. He kinda took her in without even knowing her. He really helped us take care of her. That’s all that matters. He’s been like family to her ever since.”

“I see.” Mikasa runs her fingertip along the rim of her mug, sighing to herself. Because nothing sounds more like Eren than him butting into what’s none of his business to save the day. Always gotta be the hero, that man. Sometimes, she must admit, it makes her quite angry. He’s constantly throwing himself in harm's way to protect people. Apparently, even people he doesn’t know.

“Well,” she says then, “noting as she’s his girlfriend now, I’d say she’s quite thankful indeed.”

Ymir’s face goes blank. “His what?”

Mikasa raises her eyebrows, and she’s about to speak when she notices Hitch and Sasha eyeing Ymir sternly, the confusion in her eyes disappearing with a sudden flash of clarity.

“Oh, shit. Yeah. Right.”

Hitch shakes her head while Sasha turns to face her, barely sparing her a moment’s breath before exhorting, “Anyway, how did _you_ meet him, Mikasa?”

“Oh.” She still remembers the smell in the air when she’d first laid eyes on him all those years ago—freshly cut grass and pollen. The way Armin had flitted a hand between them, how he’d smacked that same hand on his face when Eren failed to behave appropriately.

Mikasa smiles.

“I was nine. Our friend Armin introduced us.”

“Armin?” Hitch asks, taking a sip of her beer. “Like that ancient dude, Arminius? Was he a childhood friend or something?”

“Yes,” the girl answers, mildly surprised that she’s never heard of him before. Has Eren truly never mentioned him?

“That’s an odd name.”

Mikasa nods softly. “It is. But he wore it well.” She wonders how she could possibly parcel the magnitude of such a being into a few words, settling for: “Armin was very smart. He always tried hard to get us together. And he succeeded. Eren and I were quickly good friends.”

Ymir’s rolling onto her stomach, setting her empty beer bottle on the ground before reaching for one of the croissants set on a plate amid the center of their circle. She’s munching on it, buttery crumbs clinging to her lips as she mumbles through a mouthful, “So you know everything about his past then?”

Mikasa blinks.

The girls all have their eyes on her.

“I suppose,” she murmurs eventually, mildly confused by the question.

Sasha’s the one to break the silence that follows, giving a loud sigh. “He never talks about it, you know. All we know is that he lost his mom when he was younger. Aside from that, zero, zip. Nada.”

“Well…” Mikasa makes sure not to show any emotion, but the past carries gashes that still run deep. She tries not to genuinely wince when she finishes, “Sometimes, it’s better that way.”

And then silence comes again. 

They sit quietly among themselves, and Mikasa has to remind herself that despite their friendliness, these girls are still very much Eren’s, not hers. She must be careful not to reveal too much, for who knows what could possibly get back to him? How much or how little he wants them to know? He’s kept his life a secret, and Mikasa can’t really blame him, she has done the same. She thinks of Jean, how he’s certain that before him, nothing ever really happened in Mikasa’s life. Nothing of much importance.

It hits her then. 

Has she _always_ lied to him?

“Hmm, wow,” Ymir hums eventually, starting on a third croissant. “We just spoke lots about that fruit fucker. Who'da thought we even cared for him that much.”

“We love him, Ymir,” Sasha chides. “Including you.”

“Ugh. But don’t fucking tell him that.”

“I would never.”

“I _don’t_ love the amount of time you guys spent talking about his sex life, though,” she grunts, throwing herself over onto her back. “Not like I understand why he even gets that much ass, anyway. Boy’s like, a six outta ten. Max.”

“Yes, sex!” Hitch exclaims suddenly. She slaps her hands together, a devilish grin creeping its way over her lips. “Enough about Eren. Let’s talk about something spicy.”

Sasha groans. “Why do you always wanna talk about sex?”

“Because it’s great.”

“Okay, well, I’m not in on this one.”

Ymir snickers. “Sorry, but you still gotta participate.”

“But I’m a virgin!”

“You’ve kissed before though, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there you go.”

“Yes, virgins!” That would be Hitch.

“What?” Sasha.

“How did we lose it?” Ymir.

“Lose what?” Sasha again.

Then Hitch shakes her head, running a hand through her hair. Her eyes are fiery with excitement. 

Oh, boy. 

“Anyway. Go,” she says.

Sasha holds up a hand. “Not so fast, Hitch. You first.”

“Hmm, let’s see,” she smiles, as if she were expecting to go first from the very start. “I was… seventeen, I think? My first time was with my boyfriend at the time. It was awful. Hurt like a bitch.”

Sasha and Ymir give a loud laugh, and Mikasa wonders what’s so funny. But then Hitch shrugs and laughs too, and she thinks that perhaps it is because of the irony. Funny that someone so openly lascivious had, well, a bad start.

“Ymir,” Sasha says, finishing off the rest of her cookie. “Your turn.”

The woman hisses, her lips splitting sideways. “Ah, I don’t think you guys really wanna know.”

“Oh?” Hitch’s brows fly upward. “Pray tell.”

It doesn’t take her more coaxing after that. “Welp, I lost my v-card to Historia. We were nineteen. We fucked all night. It was awesome.”

Hitch laughs out loud, literally rolling over on her back and flailing like a maniac. It makes Mikasa laugh, too.

Sasha, however, only shakes her head, pinching the bridge of her nose. “God.”

After composing herself, Hitch wipes the tears at the corners of her eyes. Mikasa smiles at the pink blush that dusts her cheeks when she rolls back onto her stomach and demands, “Sash. Your turn.”

Sasha sighs, picking at her nails. She looks nervous. Mikasa places a consoling hand on her thigh, knowing that she’s next.

“I’ve only ever fooled around a little, as you all know,” she smiles at her before addressing the rest of the group. “My first time doing that was with you-know-who.”

“What?!” Ymir practically chokes on her own spit.

“Bitch!” Hitch yells, gasping. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Sasha sighs, motioning vaguely to her friends. “Because I knew you’d react like this.”

“Damn you!”

“How was it?”

“It was perfect,” Sasha smiles coyly, playing nervously with a lock of her own hair. Her eyes are cast downward, the tips of her lashes touching the ruddy hue of her cheeks. “He’s actually a really good kisser.”

“Bah! You hooked up with Con Con!” That would be Ymir.

Sasha only sighs again. “I think you mean Connie, but okay.”

Mikasa titters softly into her wrist. 

All eyes land on her.

_Oh, no._

“Mufasa.” Ymir leans forward a little, her freckles like tiny shadows under the light. “Your turn.”

“Well,” she voices quietly, thinking that it’s best to get this over with quickly. “I lost mine when I was sixteen. To my best friend.”

She’s surprised when Sasha is the one to question, “And how was it?”

“Um…” Mikasa smooths her hair behind her ears. It feels cold and damp, the snowflakes that had clung to the locks having all melted into them. She sighs quietly, smiling fondly at the memory.

“It was everything a girl could hope for,” she says, thinking of the clumsiness of that night, the shy sighs and the tentative, titillating fingers. The girls are practically _glowing_ with interest. “He was so gentle. I trusted him completely, and he took good care of me. Neither of us finished, but that’s okay.”

Hitch raises her brows, her lips twisting into another one of her notorious smiles. “That’s actually…. really fucking adorable.”

Ymir blinks. “Dude, yeah.”

Mikasa scratches the baby hairs at the back of her neck. “You think so?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely.”

“And what happened?”

She’s caught off guard by the question, realizing it was Sasha who had asked.

“Huh?”

“What happened to the guy? Do you still talk to him?”

At that, her gaze drops.

“No,” she says simply, burying her nose into her mug with another sip. “He’s long gone now.” The hot chocolate has gone cold in her hands. It’s Ymir’s voice that comes next. 

“Sorry to hear that, man.”

“I like to remember him for what he was,” Mikasa answers, jumping when Hitch gives a loud moan.

“God!” she gasps dramatically, rolling onto her back again and slapping the back of her hand to her forehead. “That’s so romantic!”

They all laugh, including Mikasa.

It’s not long before one of them declares the break to be over. As they clean and bake and talk, Mikasa feels over-socialized and spent. But she can sense how she’s grown closer to the girls. They all speak and joke with her freely. Ymir has warmed up enough to give her playful punches and flinch when Mikasa returns them with as much fervor; Sasha’s always finding ways to feed her chocolate; Hitch gives her smiles whenever their eyes meet.

So, they invite her to their annual New Year's Day celebration, officially declaring her part of their group.

“Annual what?” Mikasa queries, gloved hands frozen around a pink crème puff.

“It’s this thing we do the first day of every year,” Hitch tells her, sitting on the kitchen counter near where they’re working at crafting desserts. Sasha swats the side of her thigh, telling her to jump off. She doesn’t though, eyes trained solely on Mikasa. “It’s lots of fun. You should join us.”

“What is it?”

“Swimming among the stars, we call it,” Ymir answers, groaning as she stretches her arms over her head. “We’ve all got this theory that the rest of our year only goes as well as our first day. So we make sure to enjoy it.”

Mikasa smiles, wiping her fringe from her forehead with the back of her wrist. “Let me guess, Eren came up with that.”

Sasha grins, her eyes shrinking to thin slits. “Yup!”

Ah. Of course.

“So you swim to celebrate the new year?” Mikasa asks.

Ymir gives a weak one-shoulder shrug. “Pretty much.”

“Welp,” Sasha wipes her flour-coated hands on her apron. “We’re going there tonight. You should stick around till then!”

Mikasa brightens at the invitation, her eyes flaring wide as she pictures all the events the night may hold. Swimming with her friends. 

Seeing Eren again. 

But then, just as quickly, she wilts.

“I didn’t bring a bathing suit.”

Ymir: “Ha! You won’t need one!”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Hitch answers, rolling her eyes at her friend. “Just ignore her. I’ve got you covered.”

They clean up, the day’s work having ended. Ymir proposes they play video games at her place until the sun sets. Apparently, they only go swimming at night so that the stars can shine their brightest. And where do they swim? Well, it’s a surprise, they tell Mikasa. 

“I think I’m just going home,” Hitch tells them, pulling her purse over her shoulder. She looks at Sasha, who gladly peeps, “I’ll play with you, Ymir!”

“Sweet.” Ymir wipes her hands on her jeans, her golden eyes landing on Mikasa. “Mufasa, you coming?”

“Ah—”

“No,” Hitch answers for her, looping their arms together. “She’s coming with me.”

Ymir scoffs. “Hey, not so fast, Curly Sue. She’s ours.”

“You’re funny, Freckles. She’s mine.”

“I know!” Sasha grins, boasting her brilliant idea. “How about we play at Hitch’s?”

“She doesn’t have an Xbox.”

“She has a PlayStation.”

“But Xbox is life! Mufasa deserves the best, Sasha!”

“I actually…” Mikasa laughs, gazing at the women around her. Their eyes are benevolent on her. She laughs again, because just a few short weeks ago, days began when the sun rose and ended when it sank. Just weeks ago, Jiji was the only one she talked to outside of her fiancé. Just weeks ago, she was alone, so totally alone. And now she beams at her friends, grabbing Hitch’s hand before caroling, “I think video games at Hitch’s sounds like a great idea.”

**—o—**

The city whooshes by in rapid pulses that blur to streaks on the surfaces of his eyes. They lull, slowly, to a state of slumber, swallowing the colors as he falls asleep.

He’s woken some time later by the edge of Reiner’s boot tapping the side of his shin. “Wakey wakey, princess,” he says, taking a swig of his cold beer. The paper bag covering it rustles as he offers it to him. “Want some?”

“No,” Eren moans groggily, still mildly hungover from last night. He’d felt a lot better after eating Annie’s scrambled eggs and then promptly throwing them back up, but the thumping in his head and the acidic tightness in his gut are still there.

“Eren,” Reiner fidgets beside him, and he hears the rustling of paper, the swishing of the liquid inside his beer can. He smells like old cologne and cigarettes, his friend does. “Can I ask you something?”

Eren sighs softly, his eyes still closed, throat throbbing as he swallows. The window against the back of his head is cold, a chill that reaches all the way into his cranium. “Go ahead.”

There’s a pause. Reiner seems to be thinking. Eren opens an eye to peek at him, and then finally he says, “I know we all agreed to help you out here, man. But could you at least tell us what she is to you?”

A smile quirks the corner of Eren’s mouth. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Mikasa.” He says her name as if it were a death sentence. Bearing the shackles of each pause between the vowels, he smiles fully now. “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

He doesn’t see how Reiner shakes his head, downs another sip of his beer and wipes the edge of his mouth with his coat sleeve. “Listen, man. I’ll always have your back. There’s no doubt about that. But I worry, you know? We all do.”

“There’s nothing to worry about,” Eren assures him. His friend doesn’t believe him.

“What is she to you, Eren?” he goes on. “Why are we pretending that Annie’s your girlfriend, that you don’t have a phone? Why are we getting Historia to get her a role in that play?” Eren waits for him to mention that other thing he’s hiding from her, The Big Thing, but he doesn’t. He just sighs again. “I just think you should know that we’re all sacrificing something here, and we’ll gladly do it for you, man. But can’t we—can’t _I_ , at least, know why?”

“You wanna know why?” Eren opens his eyes. The loud grind of the train rolling along its tracks nearly drowns out the sound of his voice, it’s so quiet. “Have you ever gone too long— And I mean like, dry straight up cold turkey long without a hit and you get this like, weird incomplete, cranky feeling, like you can’t think straight till there’s nicotine in you and that shit hits your throat?”

Reiner blinks. “Sure. Plenty, I guess. You know how many times I’ve tried to quit? Remember last time how—”

“And do you remember feeling that first inhale? The smoke all hot, just kinda coming in and lighting you up. Your body stops shaking, and you don’t have to feel so raw about it all. You don’t have to even be here anymore. You know, that satisfaction of getting fucked up again after holding out for so long?”

“Um.” His friend seems genuinely at a loss. “Wait, so are we talking about cigs or—?

“That’s what Mikasa is to me.”

Stunned silence. 

“Shit, man.” Eren sees how Reiner tenses, how his face falls. “You really gotta lay off the drugs.”

He snorts. “I’m serious.”

“Oh, I know.”

Eren looks down at his hands, at the holes of his jeans. He can see a peek of his own skin, mildly tanned and scarred—even there on his legs. He doesn’t remember how he got that one. He’s full of scars. Full of the ugliness of his life. And he meets his friend’s worried eyes, reassuring him with a tiny smile that’s quick to fade.

“I was her first everything, Reiner. Everything. Her first kiss. Her first fuck. I taught her how to drive, how to cook. We were together for so long. And then she left me. And I still don’t know why, but part of me thinks that I do know and I just don’t wanna admit it to myself. Maybe she didn’t leave me, you know? Maybe I left her long before she walked out the door. And I know you guys all know it too, that I still love her. I practically wear it for everyone to see, this caring for her. And she’s engaged, did you know that? To some douchebag that doesn’t know how to love her right.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

“Aren’t you scared, Eren?”

He laughs. “Fuck yeah. Terrified.”

“What of?”

Oh, god. What isn’t there to be afraid of? He’s lived these past six years on autopilot, just breathing and blinking and thinking upon instinct, nothing more. But now, his moves are filled with purpose, each breath held by lungs that want to breathe… 

“I’m scared she’ll make me want to live again,” he answers. And it’s so sad to voice it aloud. Eren almost wants to cry. Because it’s true. God, it’s so fucking true. And he’s scared, so damn scared, that he’ll grow too attached to her again, that he’ll have to die again and again each time she leaves him—when she inevitably has to leave him for good. 

She’s getting married. 

His girl, his Mikasa. She's getting married. She’s only his in his past, and he’s still living there, still stuck there and he has been since the very second that she left. He doesn’t know how to break that. He doesn’t know how to not need her, not to want her every damn second of his life.

“Eren.” Reiner almost sounds angry at him. “Don’t fucking talk like that.”

He clears his throat, picking invisible lint off his jeans. “The girls are gonna take her to see the stars tonight. I told them to. Mikasa loves stars.”

“But don’t you think this is wrong?” Reiner shakes his head, his eyes heavy. He loves him, Eren knows, but that doesn’t mean he agrees with everything he does. “You’re setting up these variables in her life and she has no idea.”

“Nah. I’m helping her.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“She’s happier,” he tells him simply. “I can feel it. That’s all I want. I don’t care if she finds out what I’m doing and hates me for the rest of her life, just as long as she’s happy again. That’s all I want to do with the time I have left. I just wanna make her happy.”

Reiner gives a hearty chuckle. It erupts from deep within his diaphragm, quaking his gigantic chest. “You don’t mean that.”

Eren smirks. “Maybe I don’t.”

**—o—**

They don’t play video games.

Instead, they sit around Hitch’s living room and talk. Talk as they sit huddled eating takeout. Talk as they change into new clothes and Hitch lets Mikasa borrow a bathing suit. Talk as they walk to the subway and catch a train. Talk all the way to the building where Ymir teaches martial arts with Eren.

It’s a huge building of six floors, each one dedicated to a different sport. The place is locked and vacant and dark, and Mikasa can’t help feeling a bit uneasy as Ymir jingles the keys in her hands, grinning.

“So, this is where Eren works?” she asks. The girls nod.

“Yup!”.

“But how will we see the stars here?” she says sadly, feeling a bit let down. “We’re in a city. There’s no stars in the sky.”

“Ah,” Ymir smiles widely, her dimple flashing, freckles dancing across her face. “That’s where you’re wrong, you see. There’s stars all over. They’re everywhere. You just gotta find them.”

“How?”

Sasha wraps an arm around her waist, pulling her in close. Her breath is sweet, redolent of pink bubble gum. “Come,” she tells Mikasa, her face mere centimeters away from hers. “We’ll show you.”

**—o—**

They tell her to close her eyes. It’s a surprise, they say.

Mikasa’s steps are cautious, ushered by Hitch’s guiding hands. Her grip on her wrist is firm to keep her steady. “Don’t you dare open them,” Hitch whispers back at her through the darkness behind her eyelids. “You gotta keep your eyes shut.”

So she does. And she hears the ding of the elevator as they go up six floors, the big doors parting open. The loud thumping and echoing of their footsteps. The rattle of Ymir’s keys and the click of a large metal door being unlocked, the mighty creak of it drifting open. 

A tremendous rush of wind engulfs her then, and Mikasa nearly opens her eyes in alarm. But she squeezes them tighter, asking, “Where are we?” but nobody responds. The night air is surprisingly comfortable for it being the middle of winter. Even though it had snowed earlier in the day, most of it has already melted to a thin sleet that cracks under her boots.

“Alright,” Hitch breathes, the wind carrying her words. “Now. Open them.”

Slowly, Mikasa opens her eyes.

She gasps. 

Colossal stars shimmer all around them, so close she feels she could touch them. She turns on her toes, dumbfounded. The lights are endless, sparkling for miles and miles without end, colorful shards of light scattered everywhere. Some of them blink, some of them glow without interruption. She holds a hand to her mouth, the wind blowing her bangs across her face, so strong it could push a building.

“It’s the city lights!” Ymir announces triumphantly. “We’ve brought the stars to earth!”

“Take that, sky!” Sasha punches a fist into the air.

They stand on the rooftop, where heaven is ever closer and the buildings around them stand perched with ageless pride. The city lights murmur and Mikasa closes her eyes, absorbing the colors and the noises, remembering how she’d caressed stars with Armin when they were younger, how he’d gone on about their stories, his breath all high up in his lungs. And she wants to cry at the memory, paying it homage with this blazing, breathless moment. The girls lead her to the guardrail where they stand and laugh and tell jokes and stories, and Mikasa feels so utterly, utterly complete. 

She fits. 

Finally, she fits somewhere. 

And as they stand amid the glows and chat away, Mikasa thinks how each of her new friends is their own constellation, their own perfect array of shining life. She listens in to all of their stories, closing her eyes, relishing in her own, the realities of it. Funny that she feels this way now when she’d felt so void and sullen this morning with Levi. She’s about to part her lips to speak when Hitch suddenly exclaimed, “They’re here!”

“Eren!” Sasha squeals. She darts to him and flies into his arms, wrapping her arms and legs around him as he catches her with a labored groan.

Reiner, Connie, and Historia all appear behind him, wearing smiles on their faces. Mikasa questions where the rest of the people are, and Ymir, giving her girlfriend a greeting smooch on the lips, says that they’re unable to make it.

“Sucks for them,” Historia chippers in her soft, angelic voice. “The rest of their year might be crap now for it.”

Everyone greets each other and takes turns enveloping Mikasa in tight hugs. Eren pecks Hitch on the cheek and takes a greeting punch on the arm from Ymir before turning to her, taking in her presence as his eyes stroll up her figure.

“It’s good to see you again, Mikasa,” he says, the wind ruffling his long hair. A lock blows across his nose before he traps it behind his ear. In the darkness of the night, his eyes shine brightly, just as the lights around them do. “Are you enjoying yourself?”

“Oh, yes,” she breathes, fluttering at the way his smile broadens the features of his face.

“I’m glad.”

After greetings are distributed evenly, they all stand by the guardrail to gaze at the buildings around them. Connie and Sasha are whispering to each other, Hitch and Reiner are talking among themselves, Ymir and Historia gazing quietly at the splendor of the night, all so preoccupied that they don’t notice how Mikasa winds up beside Eren, how she prickles when the wind gathers his scent and carries him to her.

She studies him, and he’s not looking at her or the stars, his eyes are cast downward, until she utters his name and he comes alive, turning his head to face her. 

“Hmm?”

“I saw my uncle today,” she tells him. His smile is big.

“How was that?”

“It was great,” she’s smiling, too. Smiling brightly. “Thank you,” she whispers, leaning in just a bit. Eren shakes his head, smirking down at his feet.

“Anytime,” is all he says, and she thinks of how wonderful it is, how funny, that their present relationship mirrors so much of the past. They have a bench, a camaraderie that burgeons among nature and stars and rooftops. She takes his hand in hers and gives it a small squeeze, his eyes lingering on their laced fingers before rising to meet her face. 

His expression is faint. He looks so vulnerable. And before he can part his lips to say something, Mikasa takes in a breath and tells him, “I mean it, Eren. For everything, thank you.”

He shakes his head. He’s so exhausted, so sick of playing pretend. If only he could open his chest and let his heart pour out of him, envelop her in all his love. He’s so tired of being a prisoner to his emotions, so tired of stifling them and hushing them to keep them both safe. 

But then he looks down at their hands curled together and he sees the diamond on her engagement ring, as fervent as the lights around them, as mesmerizing and bright. And he can hear Jean’s voice asking him to protect her, his own voice answering back, promising that he will, he always will. And sometimes protecting people means lying. Sometimes loving means keeping your heart locked away.

“Mikasa,” he starts, but doesn’t finish. Her brows lift and her eyes grow bigger, her hand still in his when he brings it to his lips and kisses it. Lightly. Barely there.

“Nothing,” he says, patting her knuckles and letting her go. “It’s nothing.”

Mikasa opens her mouth but all that spills out is silence. Her eyes search for something in him but Eren ignores them, for they have a way of sucking him in, of entrancing him. He just can’t afford that right now. Not now. Not after everything he told Reiner. Not after everything she just told him.

_Thank you._

_For everything, thank you._

For what? Eren wonders. For what?

Everyone goes quiet. The nighttime city bustle echoes throughout the sky. Car horns, sirens, planes, all snailing by like the plump dark clouds above them, and it’s a long time before either of them speaks again.

“So this is what swimming in the stars is like,” Mikasa says eventually, which makes Reiner shake his head.

“Well,” he smirks, acknowledging the rest of the group. “Not exactly.”

They all grin at one another. Only Mikasa stands frozen, not knowing what to do.

“What do you mean?” she says. And that’s when things get even more confusing.

They scram.

Like a group of ants, everyone separates and works at unclipping and removing a large covering on the ground. Historia runs to turn some lights on, and they buzz to life on the guardrails, the floor, then finally what looks like a giant puddle of water. She flips another switch and a noise churns in the shallow oasis. As Mikasa approaches, she realizes it’s a heater, and that the water is not shallow at all. It’s a pool. A deep pool.

She laughs. “Wow! They got a pool on the rooftop? What kind of building is this?”

“The awesome kind,” Hitch answers, dipping her fingers into the water.

Connie smiles brightly, stretching his arms to the sides. “Tada!”

Mikasa covers her mouth, giggling. “All of you are crazy.”

Eren smiles brightly at that. 

They stand around the pool, staring down at it, the water glowing a soft, deep blue. Streaks of light swim across Eren’s face and body as he turns to her and says, “Ready, Mikasa?”

She nods. “Ready.”

And then everyone starts stripping.

Mikasa gasps loudly, turning away when Hitch’s bare breasts pop out from under the shirt she’s promptly removing. “Oh, God!” she cries out, and hears Ymir laugh so hard she might pee her pants—or, well, the lack of thereof. “What are you doing?!” Historia’s the one to respond.

“It’s for good luck!”

“We swim just as nature intended,” Sasha peeps from somewhere behind her. “Butt-ass naked.”

Mikasa hears the clinking of belt buckles, the unzipping of pants, the rustle of shirts being tossed and bras being unclasped.

“But it’s the middle of winter!” she protests, covering her eyes as if the gesture alone could erase the image of their nudity. But all she sees behind her eyelids is the piercing on Hitch’s navel, the small tattoo on the side of her hip.

“That’s the whole point,” Reiner says.

She turns to look at Eren, and he’s clothed save for his shoes and shirt. He looks at her, the small scars scattered across his chest stagnant against the dancing lines that swim across him. His torso is taut and rippled and Mikasa feels herself blush at the way his hair touches his collarbones, how the veins of his forearms flex as he unbuckles his belt.

“You don’t have to get in if you don’t want to,” he tells her, wearing the ghost of a smile. “But there’ll be consequences if you don’t.”

“Oh?” she tests. Eren smiles, his dimple showing.

“We’ll all think you’re a coward.”

Mikasa bites her lip, closing her eyes when she hears him unzip his pants loose and knows he’s pushing them down his thighs. There’s a splash behind her, a loud cry, some whooping. She jumps in her skin when droplets of water spritz the back of her neck.

“Eren,” she whispers, but she knows he’s no longer there.

She opens her eyes, looks up at the sky. Starts laughing. Everyone’s insane, she thinks, but they sound so happy.

“I understand now,” she tells the heavens, closing her eyes. Spurred by a bout of courage, she gulps in a large clump of cold air and takes off her coat. Then her top. Her boots. Her jeans. Her socks. She’s just in Hitch’s bathing suit, bouncing slightly on her toes and feeling herself prickle over with goosebumps. 

Suddenly, a gust of cold wind blows over her. Mikasa yelps, and her nipples literally fucking _hurt_ from how hard they pebble in the cold, her entire body surging with a rush of frigid electricity. She turns to peer behind her, where motion on the water’s surface blurs everyone’s naked, bouncing bodies.

Eren’s near the edge of the pool with his mouth blowing bubbles just beneath the surface, eyes looking up at her. Big. Green. Blue.

“Phew,” he whistles, his long hair all smoothed back behind his head. “Look who’s brave.”

Mikasa crosses her arms over her shivering figure and glowers down at him. “I’ll get you back for this, Eren Jaeger.”

He grins. “Looking forward to it.”

She laughs, but then the courage that had filled her flits away. She’s embarrassed, staring at the way the others bounce and squeal and swim and play. She crouches to get closer to him, her hair falling around her face when she whispers, “I don’t know if I can do this.”

He’s no longer teasing. Serious, Eren asks, “Why not?”

“It’s unlike me.”

“Nothing’s unlike you.”

“But… it’s cold.”

“Nah, the water’s warm.” He points downward, droplets dripping off his fingertip. “Water heater.”

“Eren, I don’t know.”

“We won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to,” he tells her, his arms stroking circles in the water and carrying him away. “But if you’re not gonna get in, watch our stuff, will ya?”

Mikasa twitches. 

_Watch your own damn stuff,_ she thinks.

She’s not a coward. 

She’s not a wimp.

She glances at the piles of clothes scattered around her, feeling herself shiver stronger against the cold. And with a pent up breath, she promptly works at loosening the strings of her bathing suit. 

Nobody’s looking at her so she lets the top and bottom wilt away to the ground by her feet, her bare skin puckering painfully at another gust of wind. She lets it whisk her away, jumping into the pool with her hair flowing behind her and a hard, loud splash that makes the others gasp.

The water contrasts the winter chill with its omnipresent heat, shrouding her like a little ball as she sinks lower, lower. She doesn’t open her eyes when her butt taps the bottom, allowing the buoyancy of her body to take her back to the top. When her head breaks the surface and she hears Eren call, “Mikasa!” she flattens her hair behind her head and opens her eyes.

“I did it!” she pants. Everyone cheers.

“Fuck yeah, Mufasa!”

“Yes! You did it!”

“Whoo!”

“You did it,” Eren echoes softly. Her head bobs as she paddles to stay above water, and it occurs to her that they’re really naked. She laughs at how wild and preposterous this all is. How unimaginable. She looks up at the sky, catching only a single glint peering down at her.

“It’s not like when Armin would take us stargazing,” Eren tells her, looking up too. He’s in front of her now, strong and solid, tall enough that he doesn’t have to paddle. “But it’s still good.”

“This is amazing,” she sighs. “Amazing, Eren.”

“You’re amazing,” he grins. Droplets trickle down his face and neck, the bridge of his nose, the tops of his shoulders. His eyelashes are damp and clumped together and they pulse with his blinks before he smiles even harder. “I gotta admit, I didn’t think you’d do it.”

“How little you know,” she laughs. He laughs with her.

Then they’re silent. 

Mikasa holds her hands to her chest, covering her breasts underwater. But Eren’s eyes never break away from her face, not daring to venture any lower. She’s not as coy, though, she stares: at the lines of his collarbones, the wet hairs that stick to his neck, how the top half of his chest blurs beneath the water’s surface and leads down to the rest of him. She can feel the heat of the pool rushing up to her cheeks, where it settles. 

Her lips tingle with remembrance, and her mind ventures to a time when they were much younger and living with Armin, how different their dynamic was then. How he’d sneak into the shower sometimes and press himself against her, the way waves seemed to wash down his face when she’d turn to look behind. She’d smile and grab him and kiss him through the film of water that ran down their heads, leading his hands to places where she needed to be felt, where she needed him to linger. This same tingle in her lips would clench between her teeth, always, as her fingers knotted in his hair and she stared down at her chest, where she’d watch him taste each of the very breasts she’s hiding from him now. And he’d cup a hand over her mouth to stifle her when he’d fit their bodies together, his breath hot on the dewy expanse of her neck. Her pleasure egressed from her throat and left her breathless, pawing at the forlorn tiles behind her as if they could save her, mewling litanies that echoed through the night… 

Oh, God.

She feels herself turn bright, cherry red, gasping at the thoughts in her mind. How inappropriate, Mikasa! Eren smiles, always so damn clueless, oblivious to the fact that she’d accidentally moaned his name last night instead of Jean’s, oblivious to how the memories swarm her and shake her and he’s about to ask if she’s alright when suddenly his head disappears into the water and bubbles burst on the surface where he once was.

“Eren?” she blinks at the empty space in front of her. “Eren?!”

His head pops back up some panicked moments later, the pool’s surface cracking open just a few feet away. His hair is a mess as he whips his neck to glare back at his laughing friend and yells, “Connie! You bastard!”

Mikasa laughs.

She peers back up at the sky, and she can feel how it smiles back down at her, breathing words only she can hear. She can hear Mama. Papa. Everyone she’s ever loved. And she asks Levi if he’s proud of her. _See, uncle? I followed my heart. Made a fool of myself. And I don’t regret it. I don’t regret a single thing._

The lone star in the sky flickers, and then, just like that, it disappears. Mikasa is left to stare at the dark stretch of heaven above her, craving a glow that is no longer there. So she seeks the one in eyes she’ll always remember, breathing, “Eren?”

He pushes his hair away from his face. His nose is pink. Eyes bluer than she’s ever seen them. Oceans. Holding oceans. “Yeah?”

And she smiles. To him, to herself, to the sky, to their friends riveting around them, she smiles and she floats and her skin lines with goosebumps and her senses come alive, one by one, bright and flaring, because she can hear Connie and Reiner wrestling in the water, the girls splashing each other, Ymir flipping Hitch off when she tells her to get a room after she gropes Historia’s little bottom, and her dark black hair sways around her as she floats and she laughs and she smiles and whispers, “Happy New Year, Eren.”

He smiles, too.

“Happy New Year.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh hi. i've had one hell of a week, lemme tell you. on the bright side: mikasa being horny for eren in this fic is one of the most hilarious things to write, honestly. the contrast is incredible. eren being horny's like "ohhh man ohhh yeah oof imagine finishing off where we left off" and mikasa's all "GASP! I SIN!" precious bean she's so pure but she's going through it (we don't blame you miki, we want eren too).
> 
> additionally, noy eren is helping me process a lot both in fandom and personally, as he has done for many years. it's good to have this intense, bright, charming, troubled, dense boy plowing through so much past trauma and mental illness and clumsily, relentlessly always coming out of the other side. i love him and i need him and he's given me so much. and i love how much so many of you love him too.
> 
> i end this note here. thank you for your words and feedback and support and love. i've said this many times before, but it all keeps the motivation and creativity flowing.
> 
> see you next week,  
> nati


	22. My Flower's Candid Rebirth

Her parents’ divorce left Mikasa split in half.

What once was singular became double. She had two homes, two bedrooms, two parents, two lives. Mama and Papa were no longer one, and when they decided to split custody of her, Mama was the one to move out, leave everything. Papa left all of himself to her. His money. His house. His remorse. But she wanted none of it. So, with a heavy heart, Mikasa had to stuff all her belongings into her little princess tote bag and leave her home near Eren’s house behind.

She cried, and cried. She wept until her eyes were swollen and her throat was scraped raw and she could cry no more—and even then she still managed to squeeze out a stray tear or two. And Eren held her. Through it all, he held her. Until she was wrenched from his grip and had to watch their grandpa bench beneath the willow tree they’d grown up under dwindle behind her as Mama drove away, the blurry image jolting as the old van ran over a bump on the gravel road.

Divorces are like their own little funerals. There’s the consoling, the weeping, the loss—except that those being missed are still alive. But after Mama left Papa, a huge chunk of who she was seemingly perished. And when he was left with nothing but empty walls and vacant rooms and closets devoid of clothing, Papa waned in ways Mikasa had never seen him do before. They all did.

Mikasa promised herself, as she poured all her belongings onto her new unmade bed, that she would never end up like them.

Gradually, as everything changed, so did she. Whereas once she dressed in pinks and whites and lilacs, now she sported blacks and reds. Her nails were always darkened with lifeless polish and her once long tresses now fell short, barely reaching the bones of her shoulders. She wore black lipstick and combat boots and joined fights when Armin was being bullied, busting noses and temples and Mama was brought into the office where she’d never stepped foot in once before.

Mikasa was angry, so angry. Her rage spurred and shifted to the tips of her fingers, curling, curling, until her hands balled into fists and they crashed against people. She defended what she loved now more than ever, clinging to it with the desperation of knowing that it would someday fade away. In this, she finally understood why Eren always fought. She finally got it.

It was one afternoon when they were both sitting in the principal’s office that he stared at her with eyes like blades, cutting into her. 

“Mikasa,” he told her, with a bruise on his cheek. “I’m so worried about you.”

They’d just finished fighting a pair of seniors that had shoved Armin’s face into the toilet. He sat sniveling in the counselor’s office, puking the toilet water he’s swallowed trying to scream. “Don’t be,” she said, her voice barely anything more than a whisper. Because even talking became too much, too heavy. With the world barely clinging to its axis, words were as futile as the screams Armin had uttered as those bullies pummeled his face into the toilet bowl. Useless. Unheard.

Eren shook his head. “You’re not— This isn’t like you.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it. Why are you fighting, Mikasa?”

Why isn’t she fighting more, is the question. Because she didn’t fight hard enough for Mama and Papa and look where that got them. Because if she doesn’t fight hard enough now—fight like you taught her to, Eren—everything will fall apart. She needs to cling, or bad things will happen. Bad, bad things.

“They’re picking on Armin,” she said simply. Eren’s eyes were blue with sadness, spilling.

“But you always said—”

“Why are you crying?”

“You always said—”

“It doesn’t matter now.”

The corner of Eren’s jaw flickered as he tightened it. He said no more, shifting on his seat, wiping his eyes with his swollen knuckles. He was already sitting, but the way he moved made it seem like he was slamming his body down onto the chair. For a flicker of a second, Mikasa felt bad. But that was quick to fade, squandered away like the rest of her emotions until she had none left.

She was this endless, endless void.

So endless, that she felt numb as the principal voiced her verdict. She was suspended. Two weeks. Eren only had one. He didn’t break any bones, you see. And Mama was too sad to be angry, too concerned for her daughter to yell. 

She looked at her with worry dampening her eyes, gleaming through the rearview mirror on the journey back home. To their new home. Their sad home. And Mikasa thought of a time when love meant happiness, when it meant singing songs with Mama in the car, murmuring Japanese verses she could not understand, giggling at the funny way they twisted and curled in her mouth like tickles. 

But love meant fists now, it meant the principal’s office and Eren crying and music no longer filling their car rides. It meant silence, and the absence of what once glowed so brightly it filled every crevice of her life. It was emptiness. All her holes bled empty. All her heart pumped empty. All of her, all of her. Empty. 

**—o—**

Mama whispered lullabies as she dug into the earth of their new home, planting seasonal fruits for the months ahead in an attempt to resurrect the old ghost of this house. Their new home was small, with creaky floorboards and walls that talked in the wind. Only one story tall save for the room up in the attic, where Mikasa resided and spent most of her time locked away. Mama jumped when she appeared at the porch with the house phone in her hands, declaring, “Uncle Levi called.”

Her mother swiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her gloved hand. “And?”

Mikasa sighed into the humidity around her. Summer was fast approaching, the trees nearly entirely denuded of any blossoms save for incessant spews of green, all sorts of greens. Armin had said once that the town they lived in held over five hundred shades of green in the summer. Like a tropical island, he’d boasted. Like a different world.

“And,” Mikasa droned, staring down at her combat boots. She was still breaking into them, and they hurt her crooked feet. “He says he’s coming for a week or two to help out.”

“I don’t need his help,” Mama murmured to her flowers.

“Well, we’re getting it,” Mikasa said, wincing at her own tone.

Mama straightened, something strange clouding her eyes. She looked like she could burst into tears or a bout of rage at any second, and Mikasa knew she wasn’t helping at all. A thin thread hung over Mama’s head since the divorce, and sometimes that thread snapped, and what was left behind was a shattered woman. A remnant. It was incredible to think even Mama could be reduced to that. Mama, of all people. 

Mikasa stared at her mother, at the sweat that trickled down her face, her neck, like her whole body was crying. 

“Why are you being like this?” Mama asked helplessly. “I just want to know. Why?”

Why  _ am  _ I being like this, Mama? Mikasa wanted to ask her for answers, for she had none herself. 

Why had she donated all her girly clothes and smashed all the pastels in her old bedroom? Why was this her own way of mourning, of shedding her old ideas of love, this new attitude? It’s not like she could even help it. She wanted more than anything to help Mama, to assuage Papa’s pain. But it was them who crumbled their own marriage. It was them who cheated and fought and now they get their own little ceremony, their divorce papers and court hearings and therapy where Mikasa gets nothing, nothing, just Eren crying and Armin being bullied and the abyssal darkness of her room throbbing with deep, steely music. So why is that, Mama? Why?

Mikasa didn’t answer her. She turned on her heels and went inside, her eyes digging through her surroundings, the strangeness of it all. A bouquet of flowers sat perched on the center of their small kitchen table, the oven wafting off scents of the pie that it cooked inside, all of this prim quiet aura invaded by the juxtaposing whir of violent music that burst from Mikasa’s little room upstairs.

She sighed and dropped the phone back into the receiver, tracing a small crack on the wall with her nails. She was that crack, Mikasa decided. A crack in the foundation of this large world, threatening to grow, grow, then break everything.

She needed Eren.

Needed him to hold her, just hold her, and tell her everything would be alright. But such comforts are for the weak, she told herself. And now she needed to be strong, to show no emotion, no surrender. It’s like somebody pricked her heart and let it drain out all of its contents. 

Time seemed to lug on slowly, screeching almost. So when Mikasa made the slow journey back up to her room and saw six missed calls from Papa and a text message ( _ I’m sorry, baby. I love you. Please talk to me. I love you. _ ) her heart did that thing it’s learned to do where it hardens, bit by bit, until it’s nothing but this cold, cold rock inside of her.

She deleted the text message.

The missed calls.

And was just about to turn off her phone when it suddenly rang in her fingertips.

It was Armin.

“Hello?” Mikasa croaked, her voice like sandpaper in her throat. She shut off the music in her bedroom, so that silence blared into her ears instead.

_ “Mikasa,” _ her friend sighed on the other line, his voice a small lull of peace pricking the chaos of her own mind.  _ “I am so, so worried about you.” _

“Everyone keeps saying that.” She hopped onto her small bed, pulled her legs up to her chest. “How do you feel, Armin?”

_ “I feel fine.” _

“I’m sorry about those seniors bullying you.”

_ “Me too.” _ A tiny laugh, music to her ears.  _ “I can’t believe you broke that guy’s nose.” _

“He was mean to you,” she said, realizing she was smiling. “I’ll break a thousand noses for you, Ar.”

Even through the phone, Mikasa could feel Armin’s sigh, feel the rush of breath, the warmth of life, caressing her face. _ “Ah. You sound like Eren.” _

Falling to her side, she pulled the covers over her body, not even bothering to take off her shoes, She breathed deeply, inhaling the strange scent of her pillow, a smell she was yet to grow accustomed to, one she couldn’t believe now belonged to her.

“He’s mad at me,” she said, remembering the look in his eyes back at the principal’s office. And she’d memorized their shape so many times before, their every color and nuance. But never had they fixed themselves on her that way, so discriminating. So sad.

They hadn’t spoken since.

She missed him. 

Armin gave another sigh, and Mikasa pictured his gaunt chest rising and falling, the little bones that seemed almost brittle. He’d lost weight in the past year, so much so that he looked like all the juice had been wrung out of him. It’s just the nerves, he’d say.  _ It’s just my anxiety, I can’t eat. I just can’t eat. _

_ “Mikasa, I don’t like that,”  _ came his voice, all taut with worry.  _ “I don’t like what you’re doing.” _

She sighed, throwing the covers over her face, breathing in the suffocating darkness.

“What am I doing?” It was a genuine question.

_ “You’re strong, Mik.”  _ Armin answered candidly. His voice broke, and Mikasa couldn’t tell whether it was coming from him or the receiver.  _ “You’re so strong. But you don’t need to be aggressive to show that.” _

She closed her eyes. Pictured him. Pictured Eren.

Everyone had changed so much. They weren’t kids anymore, innocent. They had cuts on their knuckles and bones that stuck out and clothes that reflected all the nights of the world, black like the stretch of darkness above. And Mikasa mirrored that now. This is what turning fifteen did to her. This is what loss did to her. She went from day to night. From everything to nothing. And she was stronger now than ever—her thighs were rock solid and her arms rippled slightly so that her punches stung, broke, gnarled. Physically, she was there. She just needed to harden a little more on the inside. Disappear a little more. Until there was no Mikasa left, and that way nothing, nobody, could ever hurt her again. Never, ever, again.

She cleared her throat.

“I must fight,” she said finally, hearing her mother’s footsteps in the distance, her heart sinking at the thought of her. “I have to fight. Look at what happened to my parents. They didn’t fight, Armin.”

_ “Not like this, Mikasa. Not like this.” _

“I love you, Armin. I can’t lose you.”

There was silence. A long, long silence that made Mikasa wonder if he was still there. 

In the time it took him to speak again, she visualized him next to her, his hands stroking her hair the gentle way they always did when she’s upset, letting the inken tresses spill between the cracks of his thin fingers. 

She imagined Eren, the heat that radiates off his gorgeous eyes when they stay on her and she’s crying, like she started crying then. Hot, fresh tears rolled horizontally from her eyes and over the bridge of her nose. She promptly dried them, pushed them away, stifled them. Because she must be strong and she must be cold and she had no more heart or time to spare and yet, and yet, her heart still melted, dribbled utter love and vulnerability when Armin answered.

_ “I love you, too.” _

**—o—**

Now, more than ever, Eren had to learn how to control his own emotions. Control, he told himself. For once, Eren, control them.

When they pulsed and fluttered at the sight of Mikasa—her new short hair, her faded combat boots, her plaid skirts and knee-high socks and long sleeved tops, control. When he heard her voice and she’d changed so much but that aspect of hers still remained the same, so faint and wispy, barely ever more than a breath, control. When she shared a seat beside him in the principal’s office and he knew with everything in him that her place was on stage, in front crowds of people, dancing, twirling, flourishing, and not here with him, like him, control.

Control.

But he struggled.

Because he knew Mikasa, he knew her better than anyone and he hated what she’d become. Eren felt that he could’ve done more to help her, to keep this from happening, but he knew better than anyone that you can’t save people, only love them. And he loved Mikasa. He loved Mikasa.

Perhaps now was the time to tell her.

He was waiting for her by her school locker when she appeared, suddenly, with Fucking Samuel at her side. Eren’s skin prickled at the way they conversed, the tiny smile that dawned on her lips, the way his eyes scoured her figure as if he could see through her clothes, see through to all of her.

Eren, a bit nervous, guffawed.

Fucking Samuel was a jock in their grade, one of the popular kids (barf), and Eren knew him from soccer (double barf), and he knew him well enough to know that he only banged chicks with size small panties and that he screamed “fuck yeah!” after landing goals (hence the nickname). 

Eren could picture him already, shouting “fuck yeah!” after landing Mikasa. Oh, God. The thought alone made his hands ball to fists and made him tremble with rage. No way in hell he’d allow that to happen. Immediately, his previous intentions of confessing his love to her fizzled away, and what replaced them was this copious worry, this bubbling anger. This fear.

Control, Eren. Control.

He swallowed.

“Miki.”

Fucking Samuel’s eyes flickered over the sight of him, up and down, sizing him up. Eren had a scab on his temple from his last fight that was slow to heal, making him seem pathetic against the grand flawlessness of Samuel.

“Eren,” Mikasa voiced with a small smile. And he couldn’t tell whether she was smiling at him or at the boy beside her. “What’s up?”

“Can we talk? In private?”

“Sure.”

Fucking Samuel reciprocated Eren’s glare with a flashy grin, tapping Mikasa lightly on the arm and whispering in her ear, “See you later.”

She waved. Something about the way her eyes lingered, how her thick eyeliner circumscribed her gaze, made his heart hurt. 

He cleared his throat. 

“I haven’t heard from you in two weeks,” he told her. Mikasa’s expression was blank. She opened her locker, shrugging a shoulder.

“I’ve been busy.”

“Doing what?”

“Ballet. Being in my room. The usual.”

Eren grunted, her eyes glued far ahead to some insignificant point in her locker, not moving. He reached out and touched her, cupping the pert point of her chin, lifting it so that she’d look up at him. 

Her eyes were soft and beautiful, two deep pools of black. They lingered on him for a moment, then flitted away, her cheeks blazing bright pink and he couldn’t tell whether it was just her makeup of if she was blushing at something.

“Mikasa, please,” he whispered, his breath fanning her face. “Please. Look at me.” Slowly, her eyes rose, little by little, until they landed back on him. “Can we talk?”

She pulled his hand away from her face. He had her now. Had her full attention. “About?”

“All this,” he said, fixing the strap of his backpack over his shoulder. Students bustled and milled around them, their lively voices fading to white noise. “What’s happened to you? This isn’t like you.”

She only sighed. “Is this about me beating up those seniors?”

“Hardly.”

“Then what, Eren?”

“You’re my best friend,” he pressed, nearly hissing. She flinched at his tone, so he huffed, ran a hand through his hair, told her softly, “You’ve been disappearing on me. And now I see you talking to Fucking Samuel?”

“Fucking what?”

“It’s a nickname we’ve given him in soccer.”

Mikasa gave a small laugh, and Eren’s insides leapt at the sound of it. He couldn’t remember the last time he reveled in her laughter, but this one didn’t seem that genuine at all. 

“Well, Sam’s pretty nice,” she said shyly, rummaging mindlessly through her locker. Then she murmured, “He’s taking me out to the movies on Saturday.”

Eren’s heart lifted from his chest and sank to the very bottom of his stomach with a hard, solid bang. He literally gritted the words through his teeth. “He what?”

“Yep.”

“Mik, don’t go.”

“Why?”

“He’s an asshole!”

“Why?”

“Doesn’t it seem odd to you that he only wants to talk to you now? After—”

“After what?”

“All this,” he motioned vaguely to her attire. Mikasa squinted her eyes at him, her short hair falling before her face.

“Are you saying he thinks I’m easy now?”

“No!” Eren clamored, grunting. He banged the back of his head against the lockers. “I’m saying he doesn’t take you seriously.”

Mikasa’s eyes ran over the entirety of him, scrutinizing. They lingered on his adam’s apple, his collarbone, his chest, then flew up to his eyes where she blinked and uttered coolly, “Well, I guess that’s up to me to decide.”

She turned to walk away, and Eren was left to stare at the back of her body, at the path she cleared as she trudged through the mob of students. He wanted to cry, to scream, to reach out after her and grab her. Perhaps confessing to her now would stop all this. All this mess. Perhaps he didn’t need to control his emotions, but let them pour and pour and pour and so with that, he called, “Mikasa!”

And she turned, slowly, to look at him, with people streaming around her as if she were parting their sea. Even from all the way where he stood, he could hear her.

“Yes, Eren?”

“Please,” was all he could muster. “Please. Be careful.”

**—o—**

It was then that Mikasa met her own eyes in the mirror and found a complete stranger staring back.

Her reflection bore someone she could not feel was a part of her—that was her—at all. Mama’s gentle features were erased, replaced by this austere being, this assortment of piercings and black eyeliner and short bags and torn jeans and faded sweaters. She’d even gotten her belly button pierced behind Mama’s back at some grubby tattoo parlor where all her underage ballerina friends got their piercings done behind their own Mama’s backs. All just to feel something. And for a moment, it worked. As the needle ran through her flesh, the sharp sting quelled all her other pains, assuaged them so that nothing else hurt, nothing else touched her.

Samuel was just another needle.

Her phone buzzed on the bed, bearing texts from Eren ( _ Mik, pls be careful _ ), Armin ( _ Eren says you’re going out with Samuel now? _ ), Papa ( _ Your mother and I arranged for me to pick you up next week! Please, answer my calls _ ), and Samuel. But Samuel’s said nothing exciting, just some lame heart emoji followed by a bubble of  _ can’t wait to see you tonight, beautiful. _

Mikasa scoffed. Beautiful. If anything, that was the last thing anyone could describe her as now. Just look at her. She wore herself inside out, so that what showed was all the ugliness she carried inside, all the darkness, all the different reasons why she was the way she was. As she bore her eyes through her own, the words boiled in her being:

_ Mama and Papa split because of you. _

_ You broke them. _

_ It’s all your fault. _

“I know,” she answered to her own reflection, staring at a fleck of dust in the dirty mirror. Everything about her room seemed, felt, dirty. Even though she literally scoured every inch of this place before moving in. She was just about to answer Samuel’s text when she heard a soft tapping sound.

For a moment, she stalled, thinking it was Eren throwing rocks at her window. Her heart pulsed happily at the thought, but then the sound came again and she realized it was Mama at the door, knocking gently.

“Are you decent?” her voice was muffled by the cracks of their little home. Mikasa sighed, not even moving.

“Come in, Mama.”

She did.

Tentatively, her mother slunk into her bedroom. She moved cautiously, so that it seemed as if she wasn’t even in her own home. “Uncle Levi called,” she squeaked, cringing at the way the floorboard groaned beneath her bare feet, still a stranger to the creaky spots inMikasa’s room since she seldom ever entered it. She sat slowly on her bed, glancing at her phone as it lit up and vibrated beside her but then quickly looking away.

She stared at her daughter.

“You look beautiful,” she said.

What is it with that word, Mikasa thought. What is it with people using it and lying?

“Thanks,” she murmured faintly, pulling a stray lock of hair away from her face. Her earrings were bulky and heavy, pulling down on her ears, the ends touching the tops of her bare collarbones. She wore a sleeveless black top, ripped jeans, and old greasy converse. Mama seemed entranced by the odd concoction, marveling at every aspect of her daughter.

“My,” she whispered, holding a hand to her heart. “How you’ve grown.”

Mikasa was still. Very still. Because Mama was rising from her bed to creak across the floorboards all the way to her. She stood a head shorter than her daughter, and her heart ached at the realization, for when did time escape them so that tiny leotards and tutus transformed into this? 

Mama sniffled, cleared her throat.

“Mikasa,” she smiled through the tears. “Can I brush your hair? Like we used to when you were little?”

She nodded, tears pricking her own eyes, and whispered, “Please.”

Mikasa took a seat in front of the mirror, her eyes staring back at herself through two racooned circles, and she felt sorry for Mama. None of this was her fault. As she stroked the brush through Mikasa’s hair and the tresses slid between the bristles, lifting from her head before falling limply against her neck, Mama watched her daughter intently, seemingly reading through her skin to what laid beneath.

“Sweetie,” she voiced after a while, her hands gentle on her daughter’s shoulders. “Why are you crying?”

She hadn’t realized that she was.

Sniffling, Mikasa wiped at her nose, at the streak of black moisture that coursed down her cheek, ruining her makeup. Tears came unbidden these days, pouring by their own accord, seemingly detached from her. They spilled as Mikasa’s voice broke when she answered, “Mama, I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“Oh, honey,” Mama began to cry also, and it seemed that tears also propelled themselves from her eyes without her consent. Rivulets ran down their cheeks as Mama wrapped her lanky arms around her daughter, her body jolting with a small sob.

“Why did he cheat?” was Mikasa’s sudden whisper. “We were so happy. We had everything. Why did Papa cheat?”

“Sometimes, Mikasa,” Mama breathed into her hair, her words trembling, “good people do bad things. Please, don’t hate your father.” Her subtle Japanese accent drew into her skull in jagged spikes, reminding her that they were different, foreign, strange.

That Samuel would never genuinely like her.

That it was only natural for Papa to be unfaithful to Mama in the name of some leggy, Caucasian blonde.

“I miss him,” Mikasa felt herself utter, but she did not hear the words. They were tacked to her throat, unmoving. “I miss him, Mama.”

“I do too,” her mother laughed suddenly, wiping snot from her nose. “God, isn’t that crazy? After everything, after all this, I still miss him.”

“Do you think you could ever forgive him?”

“I do not know.”

“Do you think you could ever love him again, Mama?”

“Mikasa,” Mama straightened, cupping her daughter’s cheeks with her knobby hands. She turned her face gently so that she’d look at her in the eyes and said, “I want you to understand something. I will always, always, love your father. And I will always love you. My choice to leave was not to abandon either of you, but to remove.”

“Remove what?”

“Myself.”

“But why?”

“When two people are no longer healthy for each other,” she smiled shakily, booping the tip of Mikasa’s ruddy nose with her finger. “It is out of love that they must remove themselves from one another. Please try to understand. I know this is hard for you. But being apart doesn’t mean you are no longer together.”

Mikasa closed her eyes, ringing her hands around her mother’s thin wrists.

“I will never understand that,” she said.

“For now,” Mama said, smoothing her bangs away from her face. “All you need to be is my daughter. And Mikasa?”

“Yes?”

“I just want my daughter back.”

Mikasa opened her eyes, her eyelashes clumped together with mascara and tears. Her voice came out in a hoarse sigh, dislodging itself from her throat, and in a flash she saw glimpses of the father she’s been neglecting for the past month, of his big smiles and strong shoulders that held the entire world, of his honeyed eyes and broad chest that encased his big old heart, and she wondered how a man like that, knitted together from all the benevolence God had to offer, could betray his own family this way. Leave them. 

And perhaps Mama was right. Mikasa didn’t understand. She couldn’t, for she felt that being a part of love meant being together no matter what, as bonds cannot bind people if they are far apart. But she could not bring herself to say that to Mama. So instead she closed her eyes again and breathed, “She’s right here.” And she needs you, Mama. She needs you.

**—o—**

Eren disliked a lot of people, and Fucking Samuel was pretty damn high on that list.

His stupid mocking tone, his stupid nasally voice and stupid half-lidded eyes that made him look like he was used to looking down on everyone. His stupid, stupid, stupid, stupidness! He hated him! The nerve he had, asking Mikasa out. Who did he think he was? Somebody worthy of her? As if. Nobody was worthy, nobody.

Heck, not even Eren.

“I hate him,” Eren grumbled to the open air, watching Fucking Samuel from across the soccer field, his stupid smile a big crevice on his stupid face. Their coach blew his whistle and divided everyone into two teams, and of course Fucking Samuel had to be teamed up with him. Of course.

“Hey, Jaeger,” he smiled, jogging to his side. From where he stood, Eren could smell the whole of him, his presence and his sweat. His voice was like a hair-raising screech in his ears. “Mikasa was real fun on Saturday. Wanna know what we did?”

“How about you fuck off?”

“Aw, don’t be like that.”

_ Tweeeeeeeeeee! _

The whistle’s shrill call exploded into the air, announcing the start of their game. Eren ran after the ball, ran as far away from Fucking Samuel as he could possibly get. Ran and ran and moments later, the ball was between his feet and he was kicking, running, kicking, when suddenly a flash of Mikasa sprinted through his eyes. He shook his head to try to clear it, but that didn’t work. Thoughts of her came prowling, slithering into every corner of his mind.

He saw her eyes. Heavy-lidded.

Her hair. A tousled mess.

Her lips. Parted.

And his gut wrenched at the thought that Fucking Samuel got to witness any of those things, when suddenly the ball was kicked from between his feet so vigorously, he felt the rush of wind fan his ankles from the blow.

“Fuck yeah!” Samuel cheered, landing their first goal. “Fuck yeah!”

“Good job!” Coach yelled between his hands. “Keep it up, Sam!”

Eren’s blood boiled.

They ran across the field like a horde of ants, and it wasn’t long before sweat trickled down Eren’s face and he had to wipe at it with his jersey. He struggled to keep his mind straight, his heart throbbing with green, green envy at the thought of Fucking Samuel laying a hand on Mikasa—albeit even a chaste one. When suddenly, he heard his voice beating behind him, raspy with pants.

“Come on, now,” it said. “I thought you two were friends.”

“Leave me alone,” Eren growled, and Fucking Samuel’s laugh echoed through the field.

Eren knew why he was doing this. He was taunting him. Boys only liked Mikasa from afar because she was pretty, but up close they called her names, called her Chicken Curry, Gook, all sorts of titles that made his teeth grit and his hands coil. 

So he’d protected her. All this time, protected her. But when was it that he’d turned his back and this cockroach of a guy had slunk beside her? Eren hated himself for allowing any of this, any of Samuel to come a hair of a distance from Mikasa.

_ I don’t need you to protect me, Eren,  _ he could almost hear her say.  _ I can take care of myself. _

Well, apparently not, he thought, looking at Fucking Samuel, at his glistening muscles and cackling laugh.

“Asshole,” he whispered. Then continued to play.

Despite being on the same team, they never passed the ball to one another. If Coach noticed, he didn’t say anything about it. Instead, he allowed Samuel to ram his entire body into Eren, sending him straight to the ground.

“Hey!” he screamed, scrambling to his feet, staring up at Samuel’s colossal figure. He cast a shadow over him, he was so damn big. Amid the entire soccer field, they stood frozen, glaring at one another, their teammates whooshing by around them in pursuit of the ball.

“Hey,” Samuel grinned, his brown hair plastered to his forehead. “Ever heard what they say about Asian girls?”

“Watch your  _ mouth _ .”

“You know what they like to eat, right?”

“I said watch it!” He was shouting now, the veins of his hands protruding behind his fists.

Fucking Samuel didn’t say anything else. Instead, he held his hands apart in front of him as if he were holding someone’s back, and thrust his hips in an insinuation of doggy-style that made Eren’s jaw hang slack.

And that was when it happened.

The ball was passed to Eren and he grabbed it with both hands and sent it shooting straight to Samuel’s stupid, beaming face. It hit him with a loud crackling sound.

Blood spurted from his nostrils.

Eren catapulted his entire being into him, tackling him to the ground and straddling his waist and sending out punch after punch after punch after punch—

“Eren Jaeger!” Coach screamed. “Stop it!”

Their teammates ran to encircle them, chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” and only one student thought to try to break them up as Coach jogged toward them, which sent Eren staggering. At a loss for balance, he felt Samuel’s fist meet his jaw, then his face, then his stomach, and all he could do was groan and roar and clamber back to his feet, pushing Fucking Samuel back down onto the grass and pummeling his face with fists that hissed,  _ not my Mikasa, not my Mikasa, not my Mikasa! _

**—o—**

She ran.

But by the time she got there, it was too late. The soccer field was filled with people save for the one she was looking for. “Where’s Eren?” she asked the coach, to which she was replied to with an annoyed grunt and a finger pointing out to the school building.

The principal’s office.

She waited. She waited at the bench near the school parking lot and texted for him to meet her there. And it took him a long, long time, but when he appeared, still stained with sweat and covered in blades of grass and blood, her heart sank. 

“Eren,” she gasped, rising to her feet. He towered over her, and she couldn’t remember when he’d grown this much.

She thought of Carla.

_ I’m sorry, _ she wanted to say to her. _ I couldn’t protect him. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. _

“I’m sorry,” one of them said. Eren. “I’m sorry,” he said again, and Mikasa bit her lip, scouring her eyes over the entirety of him. She wiped at the blood on his temple with her shirt sleeve, grabbed his raw knuckles and kissed them.

“I heard what happened,” she whispered, closing her eyes, breathing in the smell of grass and blood on his fingertips. “Why, Eren? Why fight?”

“Oh,” he scoffed, wrenching his hand from her grasp. “Now you’re asking _ me _ that? What about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I got suspended from soccer, did you know that?”

“Then why did you beat up Samuel?”

“Why did you go out with him?!”

“Why are you shouting?”

“Because I’m mad!”

“Why?”

“Because—!” He groaned, throwing himself onto the bench. His face fell to his hands, and he sighed, “Forget it.” He hated the way his skin prickled when her soft hands found the skin behind his neck, when she sat next to him and brought her body so close to his he could smell her. She stroked him in some consoling, motherly gesture, and Eren couldn’t bring himself to swat her away.

“Can I tell you a secret?” she breathed after a while, her voice a small tweet in the wind. The sun was setting around them, a splendorous explosion of orange, purple, red, caressed by frilly clouds. “Look,” she whispered. “Look up.”

Slowly, he did.

And what he found was her eyes staring down at him, barren, with no makeup. Her bulky piercings were gone too. All she wore was their school uniform and her converse, but everything else was simple. Bared.

“Mikasa,” he began, but she shook her head, cajoling him to silence.

“I didn’t do anything with him,” she stated simply. Eren only sighed.

“I know,” he said, wincing at the cut on his lip. “God, I know.”

“So why did you beat him up?”

“He was being disrespectful, talking bad about you.”

“Words mean nothing.”

“They mean everything to me.”

“They shouldn’t.”

He ran his hands through his hair, strands blowing in the wind, damp with his sweat. He had to smell awful, but Mikasa didn’t seem to mind. She scooted closer to him, the side of her thigh brushing up against his leg.

“Doesn’t it bother you, Mikasa?” he asked her. “The names they call you? All the racist slurs?”

Her lips were pursed, shoulders squared. She answered curtly, “They don’t define me. They can bark as much as they want, but I will never let them bite me.” 

Eren looked away. She sounded too much like her own mother. He wished so much that the divorce would’ve never happened, that he could patch up her parents and their lives with all the love he had so that no fights, no piercings, no Fucking Samuel ever had to happen. But Mikasa was benevolent, clasping his chin in her small hands and saying, “Perhaps you could learn to do the same.”

His mouth opened. Closed.

And his skin throbbed with pain and desire. He was lined from head to toe with cuts and bruises, baring all of his vulnerability to her. And she was so accepting, so calm, so willing to let him spill into her waiting hands that he parted his lips to voice _ I love— _

“When are you going to your Dad’s house?” was what came out instead. And he swallowed at the way she blinked at him, how her eyelashes touched the bottom of her eyebrows when they went all big and wide.

“Next week,” she answered, wary around the topic of her father. “Why?”

“When you do, text me. Let me know. Our bench. I want you to meet me there.”

“Why?”

Eren shook his head. The blood was dried up on his face.

“I have something very important to tell you,” was all he offered. And Mikasa wanted to say more, but then he landed a wet, hard kiss on her cheek, flinching at the pain it brought his lip.

“Shit, that hurts.”

“Then why did—?”

“See ya, Mik.”

And as she watched him fade into the parking lot, absorbed by the street and cars, it occurred to her that she never got to thank him for breaking Fucking Samuel’s nose.

**—o—**

One more suspension, they told him, and he would be expelled.

Oddly enough, the thought of being taken out of school didn’t seem to bother Eren as much as Mikasa had thought it would. But perhaps he was simply putting on a strong front. He did that a lot.

Papa’s eyes were sad strangers, their light stolen away, replaced by the shadows of incessant guilt. Mikasa couldn’t stand to stare at them for long, so that the second she hopped out of his car on her childhood driveway in her childhood home with all their childhood memories, she said, “I’m going over to Eren’s.”

“Already?” her father said, his hair an unbrushed mess, his body slumped over on the driver’s seat, defeated. Slowly, he unbuckled his seatbelt, and his daughter blinked, waited for him to jump out of the car, to slam the door shut, sending off an echo that crowed among the trees and Mikasa wanted to tell him, tell him,  _ Papa I love you but you’ve hurt me and you’ve hurt Mama but I still love you and that confuses me because how could I love someone who tore me from my home and now carries himself so grimly Papa please understand that I want to forgive you but I can’t even look at you my heart is too soft and I am yet to learn how to love people without letting them kill me. _

“Yes,” she whispered, feeling herself begin to cry. No. Not here. Not here, she could not—would not—cry here in front of him. So she turned quickly on her feet with her tote bag wrapped around her back and walked, walked all the way to the bench she grew up in, augmenting the space between her and this old home as much as she could, leaving her father to stare off at her dwindling figure. Distance served no purpose, however, as her heart was already left behind, locked within her past, the walls of the home she could smell all the way from where she was.

She walked.

Leaves crumpled underfoot, and she walked.

The wind blew on her tears, and she walked.

She sniffled, wiped at them, and she walked.

Walked until Eren standing in the distance was all she could see, until his body grew and grew and grew like the sigh of relief that rushed out of her lips as she stood before him, the willow tree on top of them swaying, singing, hissing with his breath of, “How are you?”

When was the last time she had been asked that?

“I’m not okay,” she uttered candidly, wiping a stray tear from her cheek. It seemed that all she did was cry these days. 

Eren wrapped his arms around her, kissing the top of her head. He held her and they stood there, stood there under the willow tree and the sun and by the bench where they waited countless days for the school bus they shared since childhood, and now they were fifteen and all grown up and Mikasa lived in an empty room with empty parents in an empty home. 

But Eren’s heart was so full still, so full as it thrummed against her own chest, and she swallowed every heartbeat as it gave her life, as it held her up together. Then he let her go and she felt herself crumble, felt her knees buckle and his hands find her face. “Come with me,” he whispered. He grabbed her hand. “I have something I want to show you.”

She followed him as they traipsed through the woods, stepping over protruding tree roots and fallen branches and deer shit and mud. He told her to close her eyes, and she did, clasping his hand tightly, letting him guide her. 

Mikasa was so tired of being strong.

And with Eren she could be weak, she could stumble on her feet and let him steady her, let him stop her and let go of her and say, “Now, open your eyes.”

She did.

“Eren,” came her little wheeze, her throat tight, hands shaking. “Eren…”

“Remember this?” he asked her, motioning to their surroundings, to their meadow, to where Armin took them regularly at night to gaze at the stars. But no stars littered the sky that evening, it was the color blue that flourished all around them like little specks of paint dabbed onto the world with the flick of a giant brush.

“It’s beautiful,” Mikasa whispered, standing in a circle of bushes and trees, all radiant with their bluish blooms that danced subtly in the rolling breeze. The sun was a giant orange circle in the sky, waning, timing them. But Eren was quick. He promptly hid his hands inside his jean pockets, his t-shirt pressed across his torso in the wind.

“I brought you here because I think you should know, Mikasa,” he began, clearing his throat. “There is something I haven’t told you in years.”

She blinked at the endless flowers around them, digging her eyes through every petal, every swaying shade. “What’s that?”

“Armin told me how you used to plant delphiniums with your mom when you were little. And this divorce… Well, it’s broken you. I brought you here to remind you, I guess. Um, remind you of who you are.” He cleared his throat, gazing around at all the flowers, and then, shyly, back down at her. His voice was a low drone in the sibilant air. And he said, “I wanna patch you back together, Mikasa. Fix you. I know I can.”

“We can’t fix people, Eren,” Mikasa answered simply, thinking of her parents. Of his.

“Maybe you’re right,” he shrugged, “but even then, I’m still allowed to try, aren’t I? I’ve felt… There's something I have felt for a very long time, and I think now, more than ever, I should tell you. Like Armin told me to a very long time ago.”

“Armin?”

“Yeah.”

Mikasa stared at him, unsure of what to think, say, do. She stood and stilled her trembling hands with pure will, waiting for his words. He was silent for a while, and she watched him, watched the hardened features of his face, how manly he looked. All worn and chiseled. Even at such a young age.

“I know you know I love you,” he blurted suddenly, stuttering on some words. He seemed nervous. He cleared his throat and tried again. “But I don’t think you understand how much.”

“What are you…?”

“Please, let me show you.”

He stood so close now, so near, Mikasa could feel the heat radiating from his body. With a mind of their own, her hands lifted to rest against his chest, then she closed her eyes and waited. She felt him move, felt his hands caress her earrings, her hair, smoothing the dark tendrils behind her ears before holding her face and lifting it up to him. He held her there until his lips connected with hers. Soft. Fragile. He kissed her.

Oh.

_ Oh. _

Mikasa felt herself rising, felt the rush of breath from his mouth slip into hers and she breathed him in, absorbed him, wore him. His lips parted from hers and he kissed her again, kissed her harder, and she could hear the leaves rustling around them, cheering and cavorting. All the air in her lungs was sucked out of her and thrown into the world around them, for his tongue thrust into her mouth and she tightened and mewled in surprise. She screwed her eyes shut, bunching his shirt in her hands and truly tasting him for the first time in her life. His hand was at the back of her head, pushing her closer, tighter, until they shared each other’s breaths and even though the kiss grew clumsy, she could feel herself pulling him in just as intently, with as much want.

Suddenly, she pushed him away, gasping, both of them red in the face and panting for air. “You just—” she began but could not finish, for her lips tingled with warmth, and her heart pounded and rattled the walls of her chest.

She understood.

And even then, he still assured, “I love you.”

Mikasa felt the tears on her cheeks before she felt them in her eyes, and she slapped a hand on her mouth, stifling the small sob that erupted from her.

“Eren,” she hiccuped. “No.”

“It’s true,” he whispered, the wind tossing his hair across his face, the sun rays reflected in his irises, softening his bruises and cuts. “I love you.”

“How could you possibly love me like that?” she asked him, motioning to herself. “I’m a mess.”

Eren smiled, unfazed. “You’re my mess.”

Mikasa shook her head, crying, dizzy. “Eren. Eren, I’m…”

“I’m right here,” he told her, unveiling her completely. He pulled her hands away from herself, held them to his body, to his heat. “I’m here. You have me.”

All of me, she heard him say under his breath.  _ All of me. _

“Look at me,” he told her, cupping her chin. He was so delicate, so new to her in this way. Mikasa fell helplessly to him, biting her lip to stifle her tears when he uttered again, all calm and soothing, “I love you.”

“I— I…”

“I have loved you all my life.”

Mikasa sniffled. She closed her eyes and took in a breath, and there, behind her eyelids, she saw Mama. Papa. Their tears and their pain, their broken love and their broken vows to one another. 

But then, gradually, she saw them drift away. She didn’t have to carry their pain anymore. She didn’t have to carry it all on her own.

She opened her eyes. Saw Eren.

She didn’t have to carry it all on her own.

“Eren?” she whispered. 

“Yes?”

“Can I show you how I feel right now?”

“Please.”

Trembling, Mikasa shed her tote bag from her shoulders and took off her bulky earrings, her faded combat boots, her torn black top. She stood in her white undershirt and jeans, wiped the makeup off her face with her sweater until she was denuded and Eren’s smile grew in the dwindling sunlight. She threw her belongings to the side, unmasking her being, blooming from the inside out. She gave a long sigh, then tentatively came into him and traced the healing cut on his lower lip with her fingertip before leaning in to kiss it, whispering against his mouth, “This is it. My answer.”

Eren grinned. She kissed his dimple, his cheek, the tip of his nose. And laughed. 

“So is this a yes?” he asked her between kisses, and Mikasa had thrown her arms around his neck, had suspended herself so that his arms coiled behind her waist. 

She cried of sadness and of joy, of worry and relief because loving Eren felt like being released, like being lifted. She closed her eyes as saw only warmth, the sanctuary of having him wrapped around her. 

She’d loved him since she met him. Loved him even before she knew what love was. To have him like this now, to hear him say that what he felt surpassed what just friends feel for one another, it was allowing herself to unfurl completely. There was a life before and after this moment, a timeline before he’d kissed her quite like this. And now she was different. And now she felt, even if it was for the briefest, smallest of moments, that everything happened—Papa, Mama, Samuel—everything, had to occur to make way for this, to birth this moment. And she was thankful. And she was so thankful.

“A thousand times,” she said, unscathed, unencumbered, so bright. “Yes.”

“That’s passionate.”

“I got it from a book.”

“Ah, which one?”

“Shh. Kiss me again.”

“A thousand times,” Eren whispered, his fingers in her hair, his breath inside her mouth. “Yes.”

“You’re so cheesy.”

They both smiled into their kiss.

As the flowers surrounded their weeping figures, in awe at what flourished within, they fell to the grass in a tangle of giggles and squeals. It was dangerous, being this happy. But they were young enough, naive enough, not to care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cheesy, cheesy, cheesy! but still good. this story is so heart wrenching i'm honestly not apologetic about the scenes that resemble an early 2000's shoujo manga. they deserve it. we deserve it. also, gothkasa? more like angstkasa. i couldn't help myself. plus, imagine our present-day chocolate-loving, soft-spoken, fierce ballerina queen admitting she once used to wear combat boots and listen to metallica and that it all made eren freak out. just picture her admitting that to hitch and ymir. they'd have a party with that one.
> 
> as always, thank you for reading and for commenting and for all the love you give on tumblr, twitter, here, everywhere and everywhere. this past week and a half has easily been one of the most difficult things i've survived in my life, and this fic serves as a bit of a highlight in the timeline of my years and my progress.
> 
> see you next week,  
> nati


	23. Dust Particles in the Morning Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is a big one, and it is also 11k words long. i am circling back to the playlists i had mentioned back in chapter 11 when i attached the one i made for mikasa. chapter 11 was almost entirely hers, and this one is very much eren's. i've added the playlist here and you can visit the link by clicking on the pictures or clicking [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0IkB6oZBGDH0yZY6sORN8X?si=vd9viqH5TC2fQvHFWfvdrA).
> 
> enjoy ♡

**:::**[](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0IkB6oZBGDH0yZY6sORN8X?si=aWwps8z7SVCq141FsG6IXw) :::

**—o—**

She’s practically vibrating in her skin by the time his hands reach her, searing through tissue and bone to the most intimate parts of her that ache for him in ways he’ll never know. 

Fumbling with his belt, she sighs, working it loose just as he’s peppering quick hot pecks on her neck and sucking a dark mark right above her collarbone. “I want you,” she breathes helplessly, smacking his chest when he grins self-absorbedly. But she can’t help it. She’s such a mess. She’s always a mess when it comes to him.

He presses his fingers between her thighs, panting when she pins his bottom lip between her teeth and dips her hand past the front of his jeans. They say nothing when books and mugs and all sorts of items fall from her kitchen island to the floor as he lifts her up and sets her there—nearly dropping her in the process.

“Focus,” she tells him, guiding his hands to her breasts.

His fingers contract around her pliant flesh. “Okay.”

And their haphazard dance resumes. Teeth clack together and nails scratch backs and her moans grow gradually louder as she tugs his shirt over his head, tracing her fingers over every godly line of his body.

“God, Eren,” Hitch whines, and it’s then that he feels his jeans pooling around his ankles. Her fingers tangle in his hair as a pert nipple rushes into his mouth and he sucks, hard, rendering her useless. He doesn’t know how or when they end up on the floor, but she straddles his waist and takes her top off and kisses her way down his body, grinning devilishly when he seeks to find her but she pushes him flat against the ground.

“Nah-ah-ah,” she carols, slapping his hands away. “No touching.” And he capitulates with a smirk, feeling her nails run down his chest, stomach, hips, until they start to work at pulling down his briefs. She swirls circles on him with her tongue, nips marks with her teeth, mewls lightly against him before pausing to sit back. Blink. Stare.

That’s when his smile fades.

“Oh.” Hitch’s voice is flat. Immediately, Eren knows why. 

“Shit,” he spits, covering his face with his hands. “Hitch, shit, I’m sorry.”

“Eren, it’s like the fifth time now.”

“I know! I— I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Is it me?”

“No! God, no, you’re beautiful.”

“Then what is it?”

“I don’t—” He can’t harden. “I don’t know!” He can’t fucking harden. “Hitch, I’m so sorry.”

She sighs, poking his flaccidity.

Eren promptly rises on his elbows, staring down at her in disbelief. “Did you just poke my dick?”

“It’s so… dead.”

“So you poked it?!”

“Eren,” Hitch leans over him, her little giggle melting against his cheek. “It’s okay.” She pushes him back down, kissing him. Her cattish grin and bright eyes ooze total confidence. “We can make this work.”

“How?”

“Just trust me.”

So he does. Jaw, collarbone, chest, navel, she kisses her way down his frame until she takes him into her hand and starts pumping. Slow at first. Then a bit faster. And she makes sure to relish every bit of him, every inch. She’s so good at this, always has been. And yet…

Nothing.

Eren grunts, throwing an arm over his face. “I’m broken.”

“It’s like playing pool with a rope,” Hitch murmurs dejectedly. Eren glares at her. “What? I’m just saying.”

“Forget it,” he sighs. He’s about to move to retrieve his clothes when she holds him down with a heavy hand at his stomach.

“Hold up,” she commands, straddling his hips. Her golden curls fall scattered around her face, a tendril stuck to her lips. They curve into a smile. “I’m not giving up yet.”

Eren lays back down, staring at the ceiling. She’s still working on him, staring intently as if she could resurrect him with her gaze. “I don’t get it. You used to be up in seconds.”

“I don’t get it either.”

“Erectile dysfunction is rare for your age. And for you, especially.”

“Anything else, doctor?”

“Ooh, call me that again. That’s sexy.”

“Hitch, I’m not gonna role— Whoa!”

She takes him into her mouth.

Eren bites his lip, cringing. And he waits. For the tingling. The throbbing. Anything. But nothing. Nothing happens. Hitch is still gorgeous, still his gorgeous sexy friend but he can’t bring himself to feel anything when it comes to her anymore. There’s no pulsing excitement, no feverish breaths, no rush of electricity at the thought of having her again. There’s just this stagnant iciness that settles between his legs, this limp disinterest.

Slowly, he closes his eyes. 

Behind the privacy of his eyelids, he pictures her. 

Her. 

With her nighttime hair blowing across her face and her rosy kneecaps and fingertips. With her lisp, breathless voice and squeaky little laugh. He sees her on the poolside, her body beaming like a beacon shot straight to his eyes. Blinding. Amazing. So close. 

Mikasa. 

Her name flutters to life in his being, palpable and pure.

Gradually, shards of her image illuminate and come together, transforming into those features only she can possess. He parts his lips, and all he can taste is the way that bathing suit had fit around her figure, held together by fragile strings. The splash of water that brought her bare skin just inches away from his, the forbidden barrier that floated, perched between them. How badly he wanted to break through.

Eren sighs. Hitch’s still working on him but all he feels is how two pools of ink had watched him, smiled at him, how she’d shielded herself from him and how horribly excited it all made him. He wouldn’t dare touch her, to peek below the water’s surface. He respects her. And when they’d all gotten out, she made everyone turn their backs to her with Sasha standing guard to ensure not an eye would peek. As if she had anything to be ashamed of. Anything she should hide. She was beautiful and enticing and when they’d hugged to say goodbye, he could feel her body through the barriers of clothes, feel the points of her breasts and the hollow junction between her thighs and still, he had to pretend. Pretend. Pretend not to want her, not to feel her, not to thirst.

His eyelids flicker, and he thinks of a time in some alternate universe where the girl breathing on him now is her, with streaks of her black hair spilling over him and all he sees is her raw skin, the goosebumps that swarm her, her strawberry mouth splitting open as her peaks tighten and pucker in his roving hands. His past is teeming with images of her like that, of her little gasps and groans and pants of his name, like a branding stamp that declares him hers and hers only.

He swallows and he sees her, so vivid, so complete now. She’s bent over him, eclipsing his body with her own. Her touch ripples through him in small waves, titillating his every surface, fingers at his neck. They could coil around his throat and choke him, end him. But they stay still and her eyes are gentle, blinking softly before they lean in to kiss him chastely on the lips, where he drinks her in, savors all of her spilled freely into his mouth. And he can hear himself moaning quietly, calling for her: Mikasa, Mikasa, Mikasa. But what tears through the air to reach his ears is a voice that belongs to another woman, one he hardly recognizes until it utters his name twice.

“Well, Eren, would you look at that,” Hitch triumphs, smiling brightly up at him. “We did it.”

Lazily, he lifts his head to peer down at the hardness between his legs. 

He gasps.

“Oh, no,” Eren blanches, all the color draining from his face. 

“What?” Hitch frowns, wiping her mouth with her fingers. “What is it?”

“Oh, no,” he sobs, shaking his head. All he can say is, “Shit, no, oh no, oh no, shit, no!”

“What, Eren?”

“It can’t be!”

“Eren?”

“I gotta go.”

“What?!” Hitch squawks. “Seriously?” She’s about to protest but Eren’s already on his feet, getting dressed. He runs his fingers through his hair, pulls his pants up, buckles his belt. And Hitch just sits there, watching him zip himself up and slip his shirt over his head, the little dimples at the small of his back mocking her because she’s unsatisfied and greedy and she groans, “Eren, come _on._ ”

“I can’t,” he hisses, his back to her. Hitch rolls her eyes and reaches for a cigarette from the Marlborough pack on her coffee table, lighting it with an annoyed huff. It tastes bitter, like ash and disappointment. 

She lays down, watching him as he dresses, smoke sliding out of her nostrils. Golden waves of her hair spill onto the floor, and she takes another drag of her cigarette, running a hand through the tresses and twirling them in her fingers. She huffs again. God, this fucking sucks. Eren turns to walk away and she stops him with a lifted leg at his shins.

“Not so fast, Fabio.”

He looks down at her. There’s tears in his eyes. Hitch hesitates before rising to her feet. Her steps are languid, geared toward him. She holds his face, assures him. 

“Eren, baby, it’s okay.” It’s a whisper, said to eyes that look everywhere but at her.

“No, it’s not.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of!”

“It’s not that,” he shakes his head, pulling her hands away from him by the wrists. And she wants so badly to grab him, to taste him and feel him and smell of him again. But he’s standing so close yet miles and miles away. His eyes are cloudy and damp when he says, “Hitch, I’m fucked.”

“Well,” she can’t help her little smile, the trickling line she draws down his chest with her fingertips, “not really.”

He sighs. 

“Bye.”

And then he’s gone. The door falls shut and Hitch crosses her arms over her chest, royally annoyed. She hasn’t gotten laid in nearly a month since he started having his little problem. And he doesn’t say it, Eren doesn’t say it, and he would never, ever admit it, but Hitch knows, she just _knows_ , that the cause of his trifles is very simple, very linear.

It’s the girl. 

**—o—**

The bed sheets rustle around her body as she squirms herself awake, seeking a rest that has long since deserted her. She’s having trouble sleeping lately. And that’s honestly a first.

Eventually, Mikasa surrenders, rises, gives Jiji a few gentle strokes by her feet before walking into the bathroom. She starts a bath, stares at herself in the mirror as the clothes fall away from her body: Jean’s shorts, his t-shirt, her underwear. 

She sighs at her own reflection, absorbing every facet of herself with tired eyes. Her lanky frame. Her paltry curves. The dark, smiling crevices under her eyes. The faded scar on her cheek. There’s an insipid hue to her skin. It stretches over her muscles—muscles that have gone soft from lack of use. From lack of caring. And she’s all grown and developed and made, having reached the peak of her physical existence. But she feels old. Too old.

She’ll be twenty-six tomorrow. Twenty-six.

It’s hard to believe that this physical shell has aged so rapidly, aged to this point. But her boobs haven’t started sagging yet. She laughs a little. Well, at least there’s that.

Dipping her feet into the steaming water of her bath, Mikasa thaws into it, melting against the tub. She marinates in the hot soup for a couple of minutes, staring at her toes peeking above the surface, their uneven, crooked shapes from years of standing on pointe, the nail polish she needs to retouch. But she’s stopped frequenting the salon. She’s stopped getting manis and pedis and massages and waxes. Blowing your rich fiancé’s money for the sake of maintaining a conscientious image grows old after a while.

 _But a proper woman knows how to take care of herself_ , she can hear Jean’s mother chide.

_A proper woman knows how to keep her image._

_How to keep her man happy._

Well, to hell with being a proper woman, Mikasa thinks. She’s grown sick of being perfect and coy and proper. Who came up with these definitions of womanhood anyway? She’s at the prime of her life and she has to carry all these cumbersome obligations. A proper woman knows how to do many things—but what if she doesn’t give a hoot about any of that stuff? Isn’t she allowed not to give a shit every once in a while? The way that _men_ are allowed to? Is she not allowed to make herself content above all? Before anyone else? Before her fiancé?

And why not?

The water ripples as she moves, rubbing soap on her limbs vigorously as if she could clean herself of all these ideas and their twisted, marring nature. She thinks of her friends. Hitch doesn’t abide by any rules. She sleeps with who she wants when she wants and honors her carnal desires. Ymir was practically carved out of rebellion, living life to her every whim—she even talks like she’s not afraid of the responses, content with merely voicing whatever fills her mind. Sasha literally made who she is out of nothing but sheer will and dedication and defiance to her parents’ self-imposed wishes on her. And even Historia, with her regal air and quiet smiles is all punch and kick and bite. Heck, if none of the girls abide by these dumb rules, why should she? Why should she need to be so damn perfect compared to them? To the rest of the world?

To marry Jean?

To be right for him?

Is that what her life has culminated to? To shadow a man?

 _But you’re different,_ she hears a voice in her head say. _You’re not like them. You know that._

Mikasa can only sigh at that.

Her thoughts are interrupted by a soft rap at the door. For a moment, Mikasa thinks it’s Jiji scratching up the wood, but then the door creaks on its hinges and Jean appears. Tall. Handsome. All dressed for work.

“Hey, beautiful,” he smiles, his pearly teeth gleaming. “Can I come in?”

Mikasa brightens, motioning for him to come closer with her finger.

He laughs, pottering over to bend and kiss her softly on the lips.

“Mmm,” he hums, cupping the point of her chin. She can feel his thumb graze the edge of her jaw, tracing the bone all the way to her earlobe. “You smell like lavender.”

“New soap,” Mikasa simpers. “I bought it at a stand some days ago. In the city.”

His eyebrows come together in a frown. “What were you doing all alone in the city?”

Mikasa plays with the buttons of his shirt, twisting them left and right. “Um…” she barely utters, “buying soap?”

“Right.”

Well, that was awkward.

“I like this new soap.” Jean kisses her forehead, then buries his face into the crook of her neck to kiss her throat. “I like it on you,” he whispers, his breath fanning the cool film of water on her skin. 

“Jean,” Mikasa shivers, her hands small amid the broad expanse of his chest. “It’s my birthday tomorrow.”

“I know, baby.” He smooths her hair behind her ears, smiling brightly. His eyes crinkle, the lines around them spidering out like crooked little roots. And it hits her how much older he looks, too. How worn. “I took off work so we can spend the whole day together.”

Mikasa can’t help her little squeal of joy.

Jean laughs. “My wife is adorable,” and he kisses her again. Again. Again. But when Mikasa’s pulls on the lapels of his shirt to bring him closer, he fizzles away. 

“I have to go,” he says, wiping the corner of his mouth with the pad of his thumb. And Mikasa has been here so many times before, has lived through this very situation so often, that the hot anger that once filled her has cooled down to barely a simmer. She nods, soaping her arms and legs a second time so that his eyes linger on the naked planes of her skin, but just as they cling hungrily, she sends him away.

“Bye, Jean.”

He smiles and goes. But before she’s alone again, before she can submerge herself into the water and count how long she can hold her breath, Jean stops by the door and turns to look at her.

“Mikasa,” he tells her finally. “Please remember the banquet today.”

She nods. Because how could she ever dream to forget, Jean? She knows how important work is to you. How direly, illogically, annoyingly important.

**—o—**

“It’s my friend’s birthday tomorrow,” Eren tells his doctor, beaming brightly as he does. “Isn’t that great?”

“That’s wonderful,” Dr. Hange smiles, tapping his joints with a small hammer to check his reflexes. Their wild auburn hair flits out of their ponytail like palm leaves, swaying as they move. “Thinking of doing anything special?”

His left foot jerks forward with a firm tap at his kneecap. He laughs, amused at how the body works, how it just knows when to react and what to do so instinctively. It’d be nice if it knew when to get hard.

Eren sighs.

“Actually, I don’t know yet. Maybe. We’ll see.”

Hange nods, the wild plumes of their hair bouncing as they do. After some moments, Hange removes the stethoscope draped around their neck, slips the bell beneath Eren’s shirt and holds the cold metal circle to his bare chest, telling him to breathe deeply.

Inhale.

“I think getting them a small cake won’t be a bad idea?” they propose, their thick glasses glinting in the light.

Exhale.

“Her,” Eren corrects as he’s sighing. He sucks in another blow of air. Hange’s eyebrows raise.

Inhale.

“What was that?”

Exhale.

“It’s a her, not a them.”

“Ah, so she’s a lady.”

“That she is.”

“One more, Eren.”

Inhale.

“A special lady or just… a lady lady?”

Exhale.

“She’s special. Very special.”

Hange removes the bell from his chest, unplugging their ears. “Good,” they smile, draping the stethoscope around the back of their neck again. “Good for you.” 

Eren nods, and Hange’s nose crinkles the same way Annie’s does sometimes and it makes him laugh, makes him think of her. He misses her. Hasn’t seen her since New Year’s and it’s already February. She stopped coming to trainings, stopped answering texts. But she does this sometimes. Falls off the face of the earth only to return like nothing happened.

And Eren knows why. He just pretends he doesn’t.

Hange clears their throat, pulling him from his reverie. Their thin lips are shaded crimson, the chiseled lines of their face dusted with a bit of makeup so that they are assuaged to milder edges, but they still looks very much their age. Much older than him. And wiser. It’s kind of shitty of Eren to be admiring his own doctor like that, but Hange truly is very striking in a handsome way, and so good at what they do.

They remind him of Dad sometimes. Of Dad before things got really bad.

Hange scribbles something on a notepad, then turns to look at him. Their red lips stretch wide, almost wickedly. “Your lungs are healthy, which is good,” they say, pointing at his pants with the tip of their pen. “Now, how’s that problem with your member going?”

Eren groans loudly. “Jesus, Doc, do you _have_ to call it that?”

“Oh?” their large brown eyes twinkle mischievously behind their glasses. “What other names would better suit your liking? Penis? Cock? Ding-dong? How about schlong?”

Eren slaps a hand on his face. “And to think you went through ten years of med school just to say that.”

Hange shrugs a shoulder. “What can I say? I’m a professional.”

Eren shakes his head. “Well, the problem’s still there, to answer your question.” He scratches the scar on his palm, sighing. “But I discovered I don’t have erectile dysfunction after all.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“Then what is it?”

“I’m just fucking the wrong girl.”

Hange gives a hearty laugh. Their whole body trembles with laughter, an earthquake in their chest, and it makes Eren smile. They push their glasses up to the top of their head, their long eyelashes fanning outward like mascara coated spider legs. “Ah, so the way to fix this is to fuck the right girl?”

“Sure. Except, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“She’s engaged to another man.” It comes out as a drone, as some imperceptible aspect of his life he doesn’t like to admit actually exists. Because he _can_ get hard, it’s just that it’s only when he thinks about _Mikasa_ . Because not only does his life have to be difficult enough as it is, but now his own body has to be fucking difficult about _that._ Jesus. The one thing he had going right, too.

Eren throws his head back, his skull meeting the wall. “It fucking sucks, Doc.”

Hange whistles. “That’ll surely do it.” And they smile when Eren nods, scribbling something else on their notepad. They move to their laptop at the other side of the room, taking a seat on the metal chair perched beside it with a soft grunt. “So, Eren. Any questions for me?” 

His answer is quick. “Can I ask you about love?”

Hange smiles benevolently. “I’m a physician, not a therapist.” 

“I’ll ask you about my health then.”

They shrug. “Sure.”

“My mom…” Eren begins, his posture faltering a little. “She was sick, you know. Died before she even reached her thirties. My old doctor said the chances of me inheriting what killed her are high because she was such a close relative and I’ve already started noticing symptoms.”

Hange nods. Their smile’s gone. “Yes, I read about that.”

Eren stares at the scar on his palm, tracing it over and over again with his vision. For what feels like a long time, he says nothing. Then he looks up, devoid of any expression. His voice is cold, barely escaping the tight passage of his throat.

“You see, Doc, I’ve loved sick people,” he says. Still ice. Still distant. “I’ve loved sick people all my life, so I know what sickness looks like. I know what death looks like. I know it. So they sent me to get some lab tests and I still haven’t opened the letter I just got back yesterday to check the results. Because, I just, I know. I know what the results are already.”

Hange pushes their glasses back down in front of their eyes. They clear their throat, straightening their jacket, a nervous habit Eren can recognize. They always do that when he tells them something wonky about his health. Last time he’d seen them do it was when he told them the scar on his palm nearly cost him his hand.

They ask him, “But what if you’re wrong?”

Eren shakes his head, smirking. “Highly unlikely.”

“Stubbornness is not a virtue, Eren.”

“It is for me.”

Hange gives a long sigh, rubbing their sleepless eyes. “Well, then. All I can tell you is that you seem to be in good shape—physically, anyway. And I’m glad you discovered the root of your, erm, problem. Would you still like me to prescribe you some medication?”

Eren laughs as if they've just said a joke. “Nope.” He grins, bright eyes twinkling. “I don’t do meds.”

“Hmph.”

“Thanks, Doc.” He pats the small bed he sits on, the flimsy sheet of paper underneath him tearing easily. “We all set?”

“All set.”

“Cool. See ya.”

He hops off. Trudging over to the door, he gives Hange a small wave of his hand. But as his fingers ring around the doorknob and he twists, pulls, takes a step to leave, they stop him with a single utterance of his name. Their tone is laced with something he can’t quite put his finger on. Something hefty. 

“Eren?” They sound like his mother.

Turning slowly to face them, he lets go of the breath stuck in his lungs. “Yeah?”

A moment of silence. They seem to think, eyes a bit tired and droopy. Words twist with uncertainty in their mouth.

“Open the letter,” Hange tells him finally. Not as a suggestion. As a command.

And as the door falls shut behind him, leaving their words to hang idly in the air, Eren pretends that he didn’t hear them. That he didn’t see the sadness in their eyes. The _worry._ The _knowing._ The _hurt._

**—o—**

Mikasa is champagne and chocolate covered strawberries. She’s body-tight black dresses and heels that cut scabs into her feet. She’s slow classical music and fake smiles that fade the second eyes can no longer see. She’s all masks and layers of makeup and forced laughter. She’s this adorned trinket when she’s around Jean’s work colleagues and friends. And a magician of sorts. 

She calls this her disappearance act.

Poof. Gone.

Her black dress clings to her body, ghosting over her curves. The straps cut into her shoulders, so thin they could slice her should their grip tighten a bit more. Her nail polish is chipped and uneven, a cry of audacity next to the perfect aura of the women that surround her. She stands near Jean but doesn’t cling to him, doesn’t nibble his ear or whisper small delights that make him smile to himself the way all the other women do to their husbands. They all wear bright whites and pinks and blues and yellows and Mikasa is a dark stain amid their incandescent perfection, a mark they all blatantly want removed.

Oh, how accustomed she’s become to feeling lonely amid a crowd of people. She’d finished the book Eren let her borrow, _Illusions_ , before coming here. Armin’s favorite book. And now she can’t help but think of the protagonist, Richard. How he was convinced that the world was so real until the messiah showed him otherwise, saving him from the illusion of himself. That was his greatest miracle. Waking up from the intricate fallacies of his own life. We all live in our own bubbles of perception, our small fantasies of what is tangible and real. The world is teeming with ideals, with whispers of life no realer than dreams. So Mikasa pretends this is just another dream she needs to wake up from, one she has to endure until Jean is satisfied and she can go home and clean off her mask and reappear.

None of this is real, she tells herself.

These conversations, these dresses, these people—all phony.

They live in their own illusions, where money is their doctrine and success is the clothes on their backs. Where superficiality is rewarded and visual aesthetic is more important than what lies within. Cover crap in gold and that is what this all is to Mikasa. Shiny, gilded, pretty crap. But still crap.

She curls her fingers through Jean’s and he takes a break from socializing to acknowledge her. “You okay?” he asks her, his face doing that thing where his expression doesn’t match the words coming out of his mouth. He’s in his own little bubble of reality, a reality where he’s engaged to a beautiful woman that he hauls to banquets and parties despite her incessant pleas for him not to. 

_Your wife is so mysterious,_ Mikasa had heard a man tell him some moments ago.

 _Doesn’t she ever talk?_ his wife had commented.

And all Mikasa could think of was Eren, how seamlessly he pulls words and smiles and life out of her. A magician of his own, master of the reappearance act. _Her_ reappearance act.

“I’m fine,” she tells him. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

Jean kisses her cheek, then whispers in her ear, “Don’t be too long.”

“I won’t.”

And she goes. 

Her lungs screech for air and she hadn’t realized that she’d stopped breathing. Cold, prickling goosebumps line the skin her dress doesn’t cover and Mikasa knows what’s happening immediately. 

Another episode. Right now. Already.

The air in the bathroom is less suffocating, less maddening, without those people around. Her heels click on the tiled floors as she traipses over to stare at her reflection in the mirror, her trembling hands absorbing the cool surface of the marble sink they desperately latch onto. 

She feels like puking, the meager sips of champagne she’d downed earlier reeling violently in her gut. All of her shakes as endless bouts of paranoia rush through her. But why? What is happening to trigger her this way? She hasn’t had this happen to her in months, since her first visit to Eren’s apartment. Is this somehow linked to him? She can’t stop thinking about him. His name reverberates in her, pulsing, pulsing, full of breath and fire. Always. Always. And she’s been so futile at swatting those thoughts of him away. Those raw images.

Green. 

Blue.

Gold.

She looks up into the mirror. A string of hair hangs before her face, coiling around her parted lips. Her dark eyes stare back at her, lifeless and vacant.

Green. 

Blue.

Gold.

_A safe place._

Breathe, she tells herself. Breathe.

Balloon. It inflates, inhale. It deflates, exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, exhale. But the room spins. And her body feels light but too heavy. Cold and too hot. So clammy, so wrong, worming its way through the bathroom. She paces then stands still and sucks in a shaky breath, feeling her lungs grow and bloat her chest. Get a hold of yourself, Mikasa. Brea—

_Bam!_

A stall behind her explodes open and Mikasa practically jumps a foot in the air, letting out a small yelp.

“There you are!” a woman’s voice echoes behind her. She stands with her heels on the toilet seat, her golden dress bunched around her legs. Mikasa is too riled up to even recognize her. She gasps at the blurred reflection in the mirror. 

“Wha—?”

“Finally! I’ve been waiting for you for nearly an hour!”

“Sasha?”

“In the flesh!”

Mikasa holds a hand to her forehead, another to her frenzied heart, scoffing. “What are you doing here?”

Sasha, in her pretty dress and sparkly pumps and marcelled hair, hops off the toilet with a loud _clack_ of her heels _._ She runs her hands down her figure, dusting herself off, the bangles around her wrists rattling. She’s a frenzy of energy, snickering and snorting, her curls bouncing around her head _._ “Well, my parents own a busi—”

“No,” Mikasa shakes her head, releasing the breath that had lodged itself in her throat from the scare. “I mean, here. In the bathroom.”

“Oh.” Sasha laughs, draping her arms around Mikasa’s quivering frame. She hugs her tightly, steadying her. She doesn’t speak again for some time, until Mikasa’s heart is a steady drum and her pulse is ferocious but even. It almost feels like Sasha’s intent on holding her until she’s no longer shaking. After some time, she pulls back to grin, “Waiting for you, silly!” She pulls Mikasa’s hair behind her ears, leaning in close to whisper, “Wanna get out of here?”

Mikasa’s smile is unnaturally flashy. “Is that even a question?”

“Coolio.” Sasha clasps their hands together, squeezing tightly. “Let’s go.”

Their heels clack and echo and Mikasa’s panic starts to thaw. She asks fleetingly, in a voice that doesn’t sound like her own, “What about Jean?”

Sasha doesn’t even flinch. She wipes her lipstick off of her mouth with a clean swipe of a napkin. “Don’t worry, girlfriend,” she assures her, booping the tip of her nose with the pad of her pointer finger. “I’ve got you covered.”

**—o—**

“I can’t believe that worked.”

“What can I say? Jean trusts me.”

“A little too much, if you ask me.”

“What, you jelly?”

“Not at all. I’ll be married to him soon, after all.”

“Oh, yeah. That.”

“What?”

“How’s that going?”

“He keeps postponing the date. Not that it annoys me or anything.”

“That sounds like sarcasm.”

“I’m in no rush to get hitched, honestly.”

“Hitch. Have you seen her lately?”

“Not since last week.”

“She’s having, erm, problems.”

“What do you mean?”

“Apparently, she hasn’t gotten laid in like, a month.”

“Ah, that makes two of us.”

“Really, Mikasa?”

“Oh. Did I say that out loud?”

“You totally did.”

“Crud.”

“Hey, welcome to the club! I’m still a virgin.”

“I’ve practically revirginized by now.”

“Mikasa, oh my God!”

“I said that out loud, didn’t I?”

“Ha! I’m gonna pee!”

“Sasha, control yourself.”

“We’re almost there.”

“Where are we going?”

“My place!”

“For what?”

“It’s a surprise. What? Oh, don’t look at me like that.”

“Will Eren be there?”

“Why, do you want him to?”

“No.”

“Look at you, you’re all pink!”

“It’s just the cold.”

“You’re blushing!”

“Be quiet.”

“Mikasa, your friendship with Eren is absolutely adorable.”

“I said _shh._ ”

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop.”

“Thank you.”

“One more thing, though, okay?”

“What?”

“He’s got a surprise for you too.”

**—o—**

They arrive at her apartment building a quarter before eight o’clock. 

The sun has long since set and the sky is a vast stretch of darkness, city lights dappling the corners of every building and street. As Sasha scrambles to find the right key to unlock the front door, Mikasa gazes at the scribbles on the line of buzzers by the jamb. 

_Dreyse._

_Braus._

_Jaeger._

Their names are enticing, murmuring to come closer, come inside. Sasha gives a triumphant little squeal and pushes the door open, motioning for Mikasa to follow. 

Once upon a time, she’d been standing in this very spot, gazing at the snow that settled quietly around her, buzzing and buzzing until the door magically drifted open. And she’d crossed the threshold into this separate little world, into the little world of Eren’s apartment, of his home. And now look at where she is, at how she follows quietly behind Sasha and gazes up at the flight of stairs she’s climbed countless times to visit Hitch and Eren, as if the promise she’s made to herself years ago to never see him again squandered the second that latch had unlocked and a pair of large green eyes smiled at her. That promise belongs to a different Mikasa, she thinks, and this Mikasa is new. This Mikasa is braver. 

This Mikasa stands sheepishly behind Sasha as she pushes the door to her apartment open. 

This Mikasa stares at the black mantle that covers everything inside. 

This Mikasa steps in and raises a questioning brow at her friend’s ginormous smile when suddenly, the lights flicker on and a chorus of “Surprise!” bounces up from behind every couch and table and counter to beam brightly at her.

Her friends, all in jeans and hoodies and t-shirts and nothing close to what she’s wearing, hold balloons and toot their whistles and fix the paper hats on their heads and scream, “Happy birthday, Mikasa!”

She slaps a hand to her mouth, speechless. She glances at Sasha, who picks up a whistle and blows hard, cackling. And she can feel the tears welling in her eyes, the tremulous light of the room dancing in her vision.

“Aw, she’s crying!” Hitch giggles, and it is then that Eren’s laugh fills the room.

Mikasa gasps.

“Eren,” she whispers. He stands quietly among his friends. Confetti and balloons and wispy curls of paper hang around him like a bouquet of different colors. Mikasa feels wetness trickle down her face, and she cups her hands over her eyes, sniffling. Never, in her nearly twenty-six years of life, has anyone ever done this for her.

“It was Eren’s idea!” Historia peeps. She pulls Mikasa’s hands away from her face and wipes the tears that spill down her cheeks. “It’s okay to cry,” she whispers, Ymir’s grinning behind her, giving her a playful little punch at her shoulder, which Mikasa makes sure to return—but harder. 

Everyone laughs.

Rounds of hugs are distributed. It takes about a whole five minutes to envelop everyone in Mikasa’s arms, and she still sniffles and giggles through a nasty explosion of snot when Reiner makes a joke before wrapping her up in his gigantic biceps. When she reaches Eren, the tears on her face have somewhat dried. She wipes her nose timidly. It glows. Pink.

“Hey, stranger,” Eren says, with Annie standing comfortably beside him. “Happy birthday.”

“It’s not until tomorrow,” is all she can think to say. 

“We know,” Eren beams, his hands never leaving his pockets. They ache to touch her, to feel that skin and that dress and the perfume radiating from her body. But he’s careful. Always careful. The only contact they make is when the tips of her fingers graze the misting of blonde hairs on his forearms. She sighs happily, her eyes beautiful and misty with light.

“Happy birthday, Mikasa,” Annie peeps, managing a tiny smile. There’s a bruise on her forehead, another beginning on the sweep of her neck where her hoodie begins and covers the rest of her. She taps Eren on the chest with the back of her hand, commenting rather dryly, “We know you like chocolate, so Sasha made you cupcakes.”

Mikasa’s eyes shrink with her smile. “That’s perfect.”

Then the music starts. And the dancing starts. And Sasha startles Eren by literally pouncing onto his back and wrapping her legs around him, declaring, “Piggy back ride!” Mikasa laughs at the way he stumbles and sighs—and before she can open her mouth to say anything, Reiner scoops her up and hoists her against Bertholdt’s back. Instinctively, she circles her limbs around him, her dress rucking up her thighs. 

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers to him, but all he does is laugh.

Laughter seems to be the tune of her new life, the theme of this Mikasa.

Bertholdt lugs her weight around on his back, asking, “Where to, your majesty?” 

She gazes around at the flurry of life around her, all the gleeful faces and homey scents and sounds, the whirls of her friends’ bodies swaying and moving to the music that pulses from the walls. They all shout at one another, lively and cacophonous. She can hear their voices, their laughter, their lives. 

Everyone is here. For her. 

Tonight, she is important.

“Nowhere,” she replies, gazing sleepily at Eren from across the room, wallowing in the way his neck throbs with his laughter, how his nose casts a shadow across his features, his body tall and strong and so omnipresent. 

“Nowhere,” she whispers, this time to herself. For there is nowhere else she’d rather be.

**—o—**

“Okay, ready, Mikasa?”

“For what?”

“We’re gonna play truth or dare!”

“Aw, shit. I hate this game.”

“Quiet, Bert. It’s the birthday girl’s place to decide if she wants us to play.”

“Let’s do it.”

“Whoo! That’s the spirit!”

“She’s drunk.”

“Ymir’s always drunk.”

“Annie, you start.”

“Fair enough.”

“Mmm, I dunno if that’s such a good idea.”

“Why not, Eren?”

“Because—”

“Eren.”

“Damn it.”

“Truth or dare?”

“Uhh… let’s start with truth.”

“Have you ever eaten cold pizza?”

“I love cold pizza.”

“Ew!”

“Okay. Your turn.”

“Alright. Mikasa.”

“Yes, Eren?”

“Truth or dare.”

“Dare.”

“Ooh, feisty.”

“I dare you to…”

“Come on, dude. Think of something.”

“I dare you toooooo—”

“Eren, hurry up!”

“Chug that entire beer bottle in five seconds.”

“Pfft. Watch this.”

“Oh, my God. She’s doing it.”

“Shit, she’s really doing it!”

“Whoo! Go Mikasa!”

“Sasha, my ears.”

“Sorry.”

“There. Done.”

“Shit, woman.”

“Eren, you suck at this.”

“How was I supposed to know she’d down the whole damn thing like that?”

“Mikasa, your turn.”

“Okay. Hitch.”

“Lay it on me.”

“Truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“I dare you to… kiss… someone in this circle?”

“Ha! That the best you got?”

“Do it, do it, do it!”

“Alright. Sasha, come here.”

“Ohhhhhhhhhhh SHIT!”

“Ahhhh!!! She’s doing it!!!”

“Ohhh snap!”

“Okay, okay, that’s enough, girls.”

“What, Conrad, you getting turned on?”

“Eat a sock, Ymir.”

“ _Connie._ ”

“Hitch, your turn.”

“I dare everyone to open Mikasa’s presents for her right now.”

“Wait, there’s presents?”

“Hey! You can’t just skip straight to a dare!”

“Sure I can. I just did.”

“Ugh.”

“So, Mikasa, what do you say? Wanna see your presents?”

“Is that even a question?”

“Fuck yeah, Mufasa!”

“Ymir, take a nap.”

“Shhh, babe, tone it down a little.”

“Sorry, baby.”

“Anyway. Let’s begin!”

**—o—**

They sit in a large circle, passing a single beer bottle around to take respective sips. They each hold a present, boxes and folds of wrapping paper squatted on their laps. 

Sasha claps her hands together happily, passing around black velvet cupcakes. It’s basically just chocolate batter with dark color dye, she explains, and after everyone has their cupcakes and round of beer, they smile at one another. Only Eren stares straight ahead, something imperceptible clouding his gaze.

Annie sits beside him, a present in her hands. When her steely gaze falls on Mikasa, she gives another small smile. And her bruises are hidden under locks of her hair. But they stand out blatantly to Mikasa, and she thinks fleetingly what the girls had told her some weeks ago, how Eren had beaten her father for being abusive. And was that still the case now?

All Mikasa can think to do is smile back.

“Let’s begin,” Hitch grins. She nods at Eren. “Ready?”

“Yup.” He lifts a small brooch from his lap. It’s wrapped in yellow parchment paper with a note taped to the top, but the outline is obvious enough to give the present out to Mikasa. She grins, smiling even brighter when he says, “Shit, wait. I can’t read this. I don’t have my glasses.”

“Here,” Hitch hands him her own, retrieving the pair from the top of her head.

“Thanks.” He squints, fixing the lenses over his eyes. “Damn, Hitch. You’re blind as fuck.”

“Eren, just read the fucking thing.”

He holds the note up to his face, ignoring Annie when she grunts something about him being a grandpa. “It’s from Connie,” he says. Everyone ooh’s and aah’s.

“Go on,” Ymir motions for him to continue. “Read it.”

Eren clears his throat. “Dear Mikasa,” he reads aloud, “Your face is very nice— Dude, oh my god.”

Everyone chortles loudly, the tips of Mikasa’s ears burning bright pink. 

“Nice one, Conrad,” Sasha glares at the man beside her, rolling her eyes at his boyish grin. 

“Anyway,” Eren continues, pushing the glasses further up the bridge of his nose. A strand of his hair slips out from behind his ears and dangles over his eyes, curling at the end like a small hook. “I hope you like this brooch I got you. It’s a rose. You make us all think of roses. Because you smell good— Oh, fuck me.”

“Just read it, Eren!”

He moans, “But it’s painful.”

“Give it to me.” Annie snatches it from his hands. “Because you smell good and your cheeks are always red,” she finishes. “Happy birthday. The end.”

Everyone claps their hands and cheers.

“Thank you, Connie,” Mikasa smiles at him from across the circle. He nods, lacing his fingers through Sasha’s and holding her hand on his lap. They look so comfortable together, like two pieces of the same puzzle that just fit.

The brooch is handed over to Mikasa and she buries it against her chest, smiling softly. She peeks coyly at Eren, who’s staring at her with his chin in his hand, smiling too.

 _Thank you,_ she mouths to him.

 _No problem,_ he mouths back.

“My turn,” Annie says, picking up the present on her legs. “It’s from Bertholdt. A hat.”

“God,” Hitch laughs. “No tact, Annie.”

“What? It’s a hat.” 

“Leave her alone,” Historia defends, tapping Hitch lightly on the shoulder. 

“Anyway,” Annie continues, sighing as she shifts on the floor. “The note reads: Thank you for being our friend. The world is a little brighter with you in it. You look like you’re always cold, so here’s a little something to keep your thoughts warm. Love, Bertholdt.”

“That’s fucking adorable,” Ymir comments. Everyone claps and cheers again.

“Thank you, Bertholdt,” Mikasa tells him as she takes the gift from Annie’s hands. Their fingers brush and she feels how calloused her skin is, how gnarled. Her eyes drift quickly to her face, then flit away.

Sasha goes next. “This one is from Reiner. It’s gloves, obviously, as you can see. Wait, are we supposed to say what the present is? Oh, whatever. Anyway, the card reads: Dear Mikasa, your hands are the softest things I’ve ever touched.”

Eren snorts. “Nice one, man.”

Reiner shrugs. “Well, it’s true!”

Mikasa smiles widely. “Anything else?”

“Nope!” Sasha squeaks, handing her the present. “That’s it.”

Mikasa thanks Reiner nobly with a bow of her head, and for a second, she swears she sees him blushing.

“These are socks from Annie.” Hitch announces monotonically. “Size small.” She hurls the bundle of socks over at Mikasa. “No note.”

“Thanks, Annie,” she says. Annie only blinks at her. They stare at one another, but their gazes are split apart with Reiner’s sudden roar.

“My turn!” 

All eyes land on him.

From the corner of her vision, Mikasa catches Eren grunting softly as he falls back to rest his head on Sasha’s lap. She runs her fingers through his hair and peeps, “You have such nice hair, Eren,” and he hums and Connie says something snarky that makes him breathe, “Do it, and I’ll kick your ass,” to which Sasha promptly chides, “Shh, Eren, no.” 

Mikasa genuinely can’t believe how hard she’s smiling right now.

Reiner whistles, shaking the box in his hands. It makes a _fwump_ kind of noise from inside. “Sounds like clothes. Underwear, maybe?”

“You wish,” Hitch scoffs. Everyone laughs except Mikasa. She buries her face behind her wrists, hiding her flush of embarrassment.

“I hope you like this top, Mikasa,” he reads the little note. “I figured out your size from all the clothes I’ve let you borrow. I love you, bitch.” He stops reading to laugh loudly at that. Even Eren smiles. “Also, I want my dress back. You know which one. Kisses, Hitch.”

“Sorry,” Mikasa giggles. Hitch only shakes her head, the ghost of a smile on her mouth.

Thanks are said. Gifts are passed to her. By the time someone decides to take another sip of beer, Mikasa’s lap is overflowing with presents.

Bert goes next. He holds a pair of jeans in his hands. From Sasha. Her note is two pages long and everyone groans when he holds it up to read it, but Mikasa assures that she can keep it for herself and read it later on at home, giving Sasha a peck on the cheek and a quiet, “Thank you.”

“Love ya, birthday girl,” her friend smiles. Eren opens his eyes to peer up at her from Sasha’s lap. They’re blue and green and gold and stay on her.

Mikasa wants to cry again.

Finally, the last present comes from Ymir and Historia. The girls hold up a pair of white figure skates, and the entire apartment swells with a wave of gasps. They sound feigned, almost.

“We can’t tell you what this is for,” Historia simpers as she hands them over to Mikasa. The skates are heavy in her hands. She’s too stunned to speak, so Historia continues, “But truly, Miki. We hope you enjoy them.”

“But why?” she asks dumbly, tears pricking the backs of her eyes. “Why this? It’s so much.”

Ymir only shakes her head. “Eren,” she says, and he doesn’t move. Doesn’t smile. There’s no dimple or shimmer. Just his eyes cast downward and a sudden:

“I didn’t get you anything, Mikasa.”

Everyone sits still. The room is silent.

“Oh,” she breathes. Not necessarily disappointed. But more… shocked at how he’d said it.

“Mine’s…” he sighs, finally removing Hitch’s glasses from his face and rising from Sasha’s lap. “Not here.”

“Then where is it?”

Their friends all smile at one another. Only Annie sits with the shadow of confusion darkening her visage. 

“Let’s get you dressed, Mufasa,” Ymir says suddenly, her voice piercing the silence with her skittish laugh.

The cupcakes remain untouched, all perched on the ground by their feet. Mikasa blinks rapidly before speaking. “What? Why?”

And all there is, is the way everyone groans as they haul themselves to their feet. And how Sasha curls her hands through Mikasa’s, beaming happily. And how Historia helps carry all the presents to the bedroom where they lead her in and Sasha focuses on helping her undo the straps of her dress and Ymir closes the door behind her and _locks_ it and grins and says, “You’ll see.” 

Mikasa’s smiling, and she’s crying again. She just stands there, sniveling and hiccuping as the girls all take turns at wiping her tears. It’s Hitch who’s cupping her flushed face and asking, “What’s wrong, Mikasa?”

“Nothing,” she whispers, closing her eyes. Sasha’s finished undoing the loopty-loop of straps on her back and the dress is promptly falling off her body. “I’m just so incredibly happy right now.” 

Hitch snorts, kissing her forehead. But then her tenderness breaks, and she’s their same old Hitch when she looks down at Mikasa’s chest and says, “Damn, girl. You’ve got great tits.”

Immediately, Sasha’s sighing, “Lord, I need a refund on this woman. I’m returning her to the horny store, I swear to God.”

They all laugh.

And Mikasa can only think of Jean. Think of him as her clothes fall off her body and the presents invade her skin. Think of him as she dresses in the jeans and striped top and hat and gloves everyone gave her. Think of him and realize that all their presents culminate to Eren’s, and her heart hiccups at the thought of him waiting for her outside. Think of him and see that she doesn’t miss Jean right now. Not really. Not at all.

**—o—**

Historia is, to put it lightly, filthy fucking rich.

Not only does her father own a theatre, but a stadium too. A damn stadium. Yeah. And that goes without mentioning the fact that she’s a successful ballerina that goes by the stage name Christa Lenz and tours and performs regularly. Jesus Christ. Where does Eren find his friends? Seriously. 

Mikasa had never realized just how wealthy their small friend is, attributing her humbleness to, well, leading a humble life. But that’s not the case at all. However amiable and amicable Historia may be, she’s practically royalty among all of them—which makes her involvement with the brash, blustery Ymir that much more compelling.

They traipse through the night to their destination, talking calmly among themselves. Mikasa’s heels pound against the ground, her skates wobbling in her hands, the red scarf around her neck heavy with the added weight of Connie’s rose brooch. From head to toe, she is redesigned, molded into this creature of the night. She peers up at the sky and there are no stars, only passing planes and light pollution. She’s carried back to the present moment by Bertholdt’s sudden announcement.

“We’re here.”

Here. At Historia’s family-owned friggin’ stadium.

“What in the world are we doing?” Mikasa questions, breathing her words as if they’d get in trouble should anyone outside of them hear. But the streets are mostly vacant and the night stands still.

Eren doesn’t say anything as they unlock a back door open, and it’s almost New Year’s all over again, except that this time, once inside, the building isn’t empty. There’s late night workers and janitors strolling by, all whispering their hello’s to Historia and Ymir. The boss’s daughter and her girlfriend. Their shy, ruddy-cheeked friends.

“Follow me,” Eren turns to tell her, and then everyone breaks away.

“Where are they going?” Mikasa asks futilely, for an answer is not given. Instead, Eren motions for her to stay close, and they cross ticket booths and large rooms and long halls, until they stand in front of two large doors that seemingly reach all the way up to the ceiling. Then he turns around to look at her and whispers.

“Ready?”

Mikasa smiles softly. “Ready.”

The doors swing open, slowly, to reveal a kingdom of ice inside. Mikasa is too appalled to gasp or comment, her mouth hanging uselessly ajar. “Oh my,” she begins, only to falter. Eren’s smile is big.

He says, “This is my present.”

He says, “Put on your skates.”

He says, “It’s time you dance again.”

“Dance?” Mikasa laughs, promptly removing her heels. She pulls her socks high up her ankles before stuffing her feet into the skates. “Where is everybody?” she whispers, still too shocked to utter elaborate sentences. Eren surprises her by tying up her laces, and she steadies herself with her hands on his shoulders, her eyes trained to the top of his head.

Her heart beats so fast and so hard it makes her dizzy.

She closes her eyes. Draws in a breath. Counts to ten. Calms herself.

By the time she’s breathing evenly again, Eren’s rising to his feet. He towers over her, and it occurs to her that if she were to snuggle up against his chest, the top of her head would fit perfectly under his chin. 

They’re in an empty ice rink, standing by the kiss and cry. Lights shine brightly above like neon suns, reflected in Eren’s eyes as they soften to murmur, “Happy birthday, Mikasa.” And before she can draw in a breath to reply, everything goes dark.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

The lights switch off one by one with mighty echoes, thudding against the vastness of this place. Mikasa cries out in surprise, which makes Eren chuckle. She peers at her surroundings, when just as suddenly, Reiner’s voice announces through a microphone “Ladies and germs,” which makes her jump, startled.

“I present to you,” he echoes loudly. Mikasa looks around but she can’t find him, only feel his voice rattling through the ice rink. “The one and only, the incredible, beautiful, sweet-smelling—”

Eren scoffs, tying his own skates. “God.”

“—Mikasa Ackerman!”

She freezes, unsure of what to do, say, think. She hears Sasha, Hitch, Historia, and Ymir cheering from the bleachers.

“Whoo!” they scream, whistle, clap. “Go Miki!”

“Miki,” she breathes, tears pricking her eyes again. This is all so overwhelming. So perfect. She closes her eyes and breathes in the grandeur of this place, the cool air of the ice. When suddenly, she feels Eren’s hand reaching for her own, and her fingers look so small compared to his, her palm lost amid the largeness of him.

“Do you trust me?” he says, lines of his hair caressing the skin around his eyes.

“Yes,” she breathes, her chest rising. And when has she ever given a different answer? “I trust you, Eren.”

As he pulls her to the rink, music fizzles around them, most likely coming from Reiner’s phone pressed close to the microphone. It sounds scratchy and fuzzy but she doesn’t care. It courses through them the second their skates cut into the ice, a melodic piano piece she cannot recognize. And Eren doesn’t let go. He never lets go of her. Their hands are sewn together, two lines that stitch up the designs in a tapestry.

Slowly, they move, carving cursive runes into the ice. Mikasa forgets that there are people watching, clinging as close to Eren as she can get. It is only them—him, her—that occupy the cold air as they undulate on the thinly lit rink. And do things like this truly happen to people? Are they living inside a lit up, camera-fixed movie scene? It’s all so surreal and inexplicable, Mikasa genuinely cannot fathom that this moment is absolute.

“You okay?” Eren squeezes her hand, bringing her back to him. She gasps a little laugh.

“You,” she tells him, “are incredible.”

“What can I say?” he smiles, all dimples and crinkly eyes. “I wanted your birthday to be special.”

“This is beyond special,” she says, her voice lost in the music. She closes her eyes and Eren spins on his skates to hold both her hands. He’s never been good at skating, but maybe he’s had practice during their time apart. It is then that she misses a step and tumbles into him. 

“Whoa,” he catches her with a soft grunt, losing some of his balance. She burrows herself into him, and it feels so safe, this unlacing of self in Eren’s arms. She can’t block out the scent of him, this being so close. This nearness. This _everywhere._

She looks up, watching the way he watches her. His eyes are gentle, so familiar and so whole. They’ve come to a full stop now, and she can hear small giggles coming from the bleachers but they fade to the back of her mind. The hairs behind her neck bristle with a charge of electricity she’s not sure she’s ever felt in her entire life. This moment is too perfect. Far too perfect to be true. There’s fire behind her eyelids, burning with every blink. 

Mikasa hasn’t cried this much, felt this much, in years.

Eren wipes a stray tear on her cheek with his thumb, whispering, “Don’t cry.”

With his breath on her face, she hiccups, “I’m sorry.”

He only shakes his head.

Moments whoosh on by, and when Eren lets go of her, lets her soar, she takes flight with her hair flowing behind her, long tresses that spin as her body twists and curls and a familiar surge ignites her. It inspires her limbs to move, move, move. Gliding on the ice, she closes her eyes and dances, laughing when the music swells and she half-lands a sloppy twirl after attempting a little jump. She’s lost her knack for ice skating. But it’s alright.

The girls start calling from the bleachers, “Eren, can we join?”

He smiles and nods at them despite Sasha’s low chide of, “Dude, you know this is only for them.”

When Mikasa’s eyes slide open again, they land on him. He’s standing by the kiss and cry, arms bent over the divider. She skates to him, his body augmenting until it’s all she sees. And then she holds onto the railing, panting, cold sweat sticking to her neck.

“Mikasa,” he says simply, his voice a low drum in her ears. “You need to dance again.”

And she laughs.

She skates away and tosses her arms out to the sides and lets the wind lap at her entire body. “Maybe I will,” she says to herself, the music thrumming in her eyelids. She sighs, says it a little louder.

“Maybe I will!”

And Eren’s smile is so bright, it fills the sun with envy.

“Good.”

**—o—**

Open the letter.

He hugs Mikasa goodbye, grinning at the little tears that form by the corners of her eyes. Stop crying, he tells her.

Open the letter, she whispers.

He walks home with his friends, all joking and laughing, giving him punches and congratulations on what just occurred. Did you see her, they all smile. Did you see Mikasa dance?

Open the letter, they whisper.

The night bleeds into the slow light of the rising sun, reflected in his eyes as he stares outside his window. It breaks the sky, bathes the city in a soft shade of yellow.

Open the letter, it whispers.

He closes his eyes and walks to his kitchen, glimpses of the previous night glowing in his memory. Mikasa skating. Mikasa crying. Mikasa fitting perfectly in his hands. How she melted into his fingers.

Open the letter, he whispers to himself.

He sighs, reaching for the neat fold of paper, a knife in one hand, a cigarette in the other. He’s shaking. And he laughs at that. He laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs and—

Opens the letter.

**—o—**

Mikasa only sleeps three hours. Three hours filled with memories of spinning lights, of striped long sleeve shirts and black velvet cupcakes and beer and ice skates that slice the floor. She awakens to warm lips murmuring at the shell of her ear. 

“‘Kasa,” they tickle. “‘Kaaaaaaasa,” and she smiles groggily. Rolling onto her back, she cracks open an eyelid.

“Jean?”

“Mhm.”

“What is it?”

“What do you think?”

She smiles at him, groaning when she stretches on the bed, her body writhing with every crack and pop of her sleepy joints. His hair is neatly brushed and his breath smells of peppermint. She blinks at him, rubbing the vestiges of sleep from her eyes.

“How long have you been up?”

Her fiancé’s eyes give a roll that sends them reeling in their sockets. “Not important.”

“Is Jiji okay?”

“Mr. Pringles is fine.”

“Then what is it?”

Jean laughs, his nose crinkling. Mikasa can’t help it when she leans in to kiss it, humming to herself, pleased. 

“Well,” he begins, snaking his arms around her under the covers. His touch is warm and strong and Mikasa allows herself to melt, melt into his arms until she’s pressed flush against him, held up by the makeup of his bones. His voice in her ear tickles, the gentle gusts of his breath brushing her cheek. “It’s somebody’s birthday today.”

Mikasa laces her fingers through his. “Is it really?”

“Yup.”

“Whose?”

He kisses her ear. “Guess.”

“Hmmm,” Mikasa feigns a pensive expression, turning to look at him. She swipes his hair away from his eyes, relishing in how handsome he looks, his face carved into a gentle expression, eyes so full of love. Full of love for her. 

“It’s not yours,” she says quietly, booping the tip of his nose with her own.

Jean’s grin is dazzling. “Nope.”

“Or Jiji’s.”

“Nope.”

“So… I’d say, since we have no other friends…” She turns her body to face him completely now, kissing him softly on the lips. He reciprocates, which makes her smile, whisper, “Mine?” 

“Bingo.”

Her eyes shrink with her smile, but before she can say anything else, Jean has her pinned to the bed. His body is heavy on top of hers, the palms of his hands calloused and warm, eliciting tiny sighs, pulling diaphanous utterances of his name from her mouth. He tells her he has a birthday present for her— _many_ birthday presents, he corrects—but before he can rise from the bed and leave her, she locks her legs around his waist and asks him to stay. Just this once. Stay. Stay with her.

“Jean,” she breathes, sneaking her hands under his shirt to find the warmth of his lower belly. “Please.”

“You okay?”

“Yes, just— Please.”

This time, he doesn’t escape her. He complies. And she’s surprised when his hands promptly rush to find the skin under her nightgown, pulling down on the straps to kiss the peaks of her breasts. Fleetingly, she wonders when was the last time they ever even came close to doing this, and with a wilting groan she realizes that she can’t remember. It’s been so long. Too long. All she wants today is to be selfish, to seek purchase of his skin, to have him, remember why they’re here. Like this. Engaged. To be married. Sharing each other for the rest of their lives. 

She blinks up at the ceiling as his lips venture lower, and at every blink she captures ghostly flickers of the previous nights, nights filled with Eren. His smile. His voice. His eyes. His boyish dimple and his long hair. She’s aghast at the thoughts in her head, as if Jean could peek into the privacy of her mind, and fights against them by seeking him more, by pulling him up to her and kissing him with passion, fire she hopes will burn all thoughts of Eren away.

She’s been spending too much time with him, she reasons.

That is why she thinks of him so much, she tells herself.

And before she can fathom another thought, Jean pulls her back to him by pushing into her. She cries out. It hurts. She’s taut and tender and bites her lip to keep her pain from slipping out of her again. Dust particles dance in the morning light, glinting in his eyes as they teem with worry. But before he can ask if she’s alright, she pushes him over onto his back so that she’s topping. His eyes flash with a tendril of surprise that she’s quick to shush with a roll of her hips that cajoles his own to meet her. In every rise and fall he’s there. He grips her hips and thrusts and moans and he’s there, he’s there with her. She feels him. She wants him. Only him. Only him. She reminds herself, only him.

They make love, and as she comes, her eyes tightly shut so that she can’t see, only feel, a burst of green, blue, gold, explodes behind her eyelids. She gasps, and she can feel Jean’s exhales at her throat but what she registers is something else entirely. She feels hands that aren’t his draped around her waist, a fervid heartbeat that doesn’t belong to him. Her fingertips graze the dewy planes of his chest and the thumping they absorb is neither his or hers. Slowly, she parts her eyelids open, and in a whooshing vortex, she’s pulled back. Back to the first time she ever did this, the pain that slowly subsided into pleasure, the tiny whispers of _is this okay?_ and _tell me if I’m hurting you_ and _I love you._ How the words echoed off through the night, beating, _I love you, I love you, I love you._

But nothing is said now. Nothing is said.

 _I love you._ It pounds against the walls in her head. _I love you_ . And when Jean pulls her in for a final kiss, smiling softly, what she tastes is another man. _I love you._ And it’s all lewd, all so shameful, but what she aches for lies solely in her past, a wisp of breath that held, _I love you_. And as her fiancé splits the silence that follows their labored breaths with a kiss to her throat and three words, what she hears is Eren’s voice uttering the noises that leave him, noises that morph into shapes she’s heard countless times years before.

I love you.

**—o—**

He blows a plume of smoke from his mouth, using the same flame he’d lit his cigarette with to burn the edges of the letter in his hands. The words glow as they disappear. Dying.

_Thank you for completing the blood tests and screenings we requested._

He watches them dwindle, lines of light that glow and exhale.

_We have tested all samples we received from St. Maria Hospital on 124 Main St._

As the crackling breaths swallow the crumpled paper, he pictures himself.

_and are very sorry to inform that the patient,_

Fading, fading.

_Eren Jaeger, twenty-five years of age,_

Until he releases it and it vanishes to thin air with a fuming burst. 

_has been found positive of the following:_

So pretty.

_Chronic_

Going.

_Myeloid_

Going.

_Leukemia_

Gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter certainly goes down as one of the most difficult things i've ever written. 
> 
> i was revising my docs and the next 13 chapters are.....a lot. i remember having to take months-long breaks between each of the chapters because i was so bombed by them after pouring in hours and hours of work. 
> 
> and yes, eren is sick ;-; please trust me. i said this years ago when i first posted the chapter and received an influx of anxious messages. but just trust me.
> 
> thank you always and always and always and always. feedback is always welcome and encouraged and needed.
> 
> EDIT: i've changed hange's pronouns from "she/her" to "they/them" because when i first wrote this, their gender was still highly debated in the fandom and most people went by addressing them with she/her pronouns. however, as time's passed and i just recently saw that it's actually depicted in the very manga character pages that hange's pronouns are they/them, i've edited them accordingly. it's also very important to me that anyone who associates with such pronouns feels respected and represented in my works, so i hope this helps with appropriate correction.
> 
> see you next week,  
> nati ♡


	24. A Boy’s Persistent Heart

The doctors said Eren was sick. His brain was sick, so he needed new medication to fix it. 

He learned the difference between SSRI and SNRI pills, and which ones he needed to be on. Apparently, bipolar disorder had to be added to the already-lengthy list of things that was wrong with him. And with these new conditions came new treatment, medicine he vowed not to take.

“I don’t care if they put me on fifty different meds,” he told his father one morning over a half-eaten bowl of cereal. “I’m not popping a single pill.”

Grisha Jaeger was expressionless. His eyes bore deeply into Eren through the lenses of his glasses, nothing more than a sigh leaving his mouth.

“Eren,” he began, but was promptly interrupted.

“Meds didn’t save Mom, and look at what they’re doing to Armin.”

His father had nothing to say at that. Eren’s stubbornness resembled so much of Carla’s. Grisha missed her. He missed her in ways his heart had not yet learned how to miss, even after all this time.

“Medication is important,” he said. “You can’t deny help when you need it.”

But Eren only shook his head and said, “I don’t need help.” And he was wrong, but his father was too tired—too sad—to argue.

**—o—**

“Can you hear that?”

“Hear what, Ar?”

“The leaves,” Armin whispered, tossing his head back in the wind, his swimming trunks pressing against his gaunt legs. They sat lounging under the sun, the warm water of the lake they liked to frequent now nothing more than drying droplets on their skins. Armin’s hair was a blonde, damp mop. Running a hand through the soaked locks, he added, “I love leaves. How they sound.”

Eren’s face furrowed. “You can hear them?”

“No,” was his friend’s reply. “But I can feel them.”

Feel them, Eren thought. Armin had lost almost all of his hearing. This made him different. Like Eren. But where he bore ailments in the heart and brain, Armin carried them in his body. 

When Eren’s palm pressed flat against the center of Armin’s chest, the breaths that swayed within it stilled. 

“Can you feel this?” he asked him, to which he was met with puzzlement.

“My heart?”

“Yeah.”

His small friend smiled. “Yeah, I feel it. I hear it. All through my body, it’s there.”

Eren’s sigh slid out through his nostrils, sinking his bare chest. He nodded, propping his weight back on his arms. “Good.”

Armin’s eyes clung to him, then Mikasa. She sat quietly beside them, mindlessly turning the pages of a small copy of _ Grendel  _ they all had to read for AP English over the summer. His lips parted to say something, but only the warm fog of his breath came out.

He had so much he had to tell them.

But they paid him no heed. Mikasa was nodding softly to the music from her earpods; Eren had his eyes closed and head thrown back to bask in the heat of the sun.

“I’m going for a swim,” Armin decided finally, rising to his feet. He pottered away as Eren called behind him.

“Be careful!”

And he was gone. 

His body became the lake, the pale white of his skin inundated by the murky hue of the water. Eren watched quietly with his knees to his chest, frowning at something imperceptible.

“I’m so worried about him. He’s not eating.” It was Mikasa that said that, her sudden voice clashing with the silence around them. Eren could only sigh, close his eyes and open them again to turn and look at her. She’d pulled her headphones out of her ears, and he could hear the low beat of whatever Yo-Yo Ma rendition she had on repeat.

“He’s sick, Miki,” he stated simply, pulling a lock of hair away from her face. Her cheeks were ruddy in the heat of the summer, the points and crooks of her joints glowing red.

“How is he looking to you?” she asked him. Eren could only shrug.

“Deaf.”

Mikasa smacked him lightly on the chest.

“What? It’s true.”

She was the one frowning now, her thin brows pushed close together. What worries buzzed in her head, Eren couldn’t guess. So he leaned in to kiss the pointy tip of her nose, breathing, “What is it?”

Her answer came quick. “I’m scared, Eren.”

He knew immediately what she was talking about. 

God, how terribly he wanted to take all of Armin’s pain away, to swipe his hand and cleanse him like some sort of magical messiah—like the one in the book he liked to read so much. It sat idly by their feet, ear-dogged midway to his third or fourth read. Why Armin adored it so much, Eren didn’t know. It was one of the mysteries that came with being friends with someone so bright, so brilliant. His obsessions breathed life into him in a way that nothing and nobody else did or could. 

“I’m scared, too,” Eren said eventually, turning his head to face her again. Mikasa stared at the water, at Armin’s every splash and cry. So he held one side of her face, guiding her eyes to acknowledge him. And once they did, he whispered, “We have to protect him, Mikasa. Always.”

“I will. I promise.” She nodded, closing her eyes. Her cheek in his hand was clammy with warmth and sweat. “As long as I’m with you, I can do anything.”

Eren grinned. “Can you do this?”

His lips on hers were faint. Barely pressing against the plush of her mouth, he could taste her, taste the hum in her throat and the slight curves of her smile.

“Yes,” she said, placing a hand on his chest, his skin sweltering at the contact. Under the sun, she seemed brighter, redder, and smelled even sweeter in the heat. He inhaled her scent and buried his face in the crook of her neck, nuzzled her skin and felt her react to the tickle, curling up into small giggles.

“How about this?”

“Eren.”

“What?”

“Armin.”

He laughed. Kissed her there. “He’s not looking.”

“No.”

“What?”

“Armin,” came her voice, tight with something foreign. “Where is he?”

At that, Eren’s head jerked around so fast the bones in his neck cracked. He dug his eyes through the lake and, surely enough, found nothing. No Armin. No activity. Nothing. Just the stillness of calm waters before a raging storm.

**—o—**

The lake was so healing.

As he sank lower and lower, Armin closed his eyes.

Enveloped in the coolness of the water, he could feel himself drifting further down to the bottom, where foreign things awaited. There, he wasn’t ill, wasn’t cancer, wasn’t deaf. He was just this undefined being, governed by the buoyancy of its shell. Sinking. Sinking. Sinking more and more.

Through the darkness in his eyes, images of his life flickered past. He saw Mom. Dad. Grandpa. And then Eren, Mikasa, Carla, everyone he had ever loved. And he asked them, asked them why. Why did they love him so? When he was damaged goods? He was not normal, not worthy of normal things like girlfriends and friends and laughter and music. The skies, whatever source he came from, made him broken, made him weak and ill and skinny; a reminder that not all things were made equal, not all beings were born to experience the fullness of life.

As he thought of this, a crevice in him bled itself agape. He realized with a start that he was no longer breathing, that his lungs gnawed for air that had escaped him. So he opened his mouth. Breathed. It was then that he realized he was drowning.

It’s okay, he told himself. It’s okay. He was already dead anyway.

So he closed his eyes and let the water heal him, let it restore his hearing and dull his pulse, so that as the coldness seeped into his throat, he felt the burn and he felt grateful. The pain of life escaped him, replaced by this soothing inhale, the exhale that never came.

And just when he thought he could see light, see it all end, see a new beginning, he felt strong arms yanking him upward, felt his body break the surface and the healing end.

**—o—**

Armin?

Mikasa was sobbing.

Armin!

Eren, drenched, was weeping out the pores of his skin.

Are you okay?!

And he was still here, still breathing, still sick. He coughed profusely. Gasped. Groaned when taut arms enveloped and squeezed him, when his friends’ voices slid into the clogged canals of his ears.

He felt Eren’s throat vibrating with words.

He was thanking God. Thanking everything.

When he pulled away, when his face was mere inches from his, he saw that Eren’s eyes were red, the water dripping off his skin in rivulets, his hair a plastered mess on his face.

Are you okay, he felt him ask him. Armin. Armin. Are you okay?

Can you hear me?

Please, answer me.

Please!

Mikasa garnered his shivering frame in her arms, pressed him so close to her chest he could feel her heart. It was frenzied. A wild, thrashing animal. Armin could only stare ahead at the heavens, wonder why it thought it necessary to keep him here longer when all he did was bring chaos, a useless burden to his friends.

He held them.

Mikasa was full on sobbing, her nails digging crescents into his flesh from how hard she gripped him. Don’t ever scare us like that again, he felt her say. Don’t you ever, ever do this to us again, Armin.

When it was Eren’s turn to hold him, he’d grabbed his face and pressed their foreheads together. Armin closed his eyes and knew that Eren was crying, too. He was speaking, saying things he could only catch from the way his breath shuddered its way onto his face. His hands gripped him so tight, all Armin could do was hold his wrists and cry with him.

Why was he like this?

Why did God need to keep him here? Keep him longer? 

Why?

When he ripped himself from their grasps, when he stared at both their sweltering faces and felt a full rush of air seep into him, Eren was the one to speak, the one to ask:

Armin.

How are you?

Reading his lips, he nodded, grabbed his hand, pressed his palm against the flat center of his chest and answered through his heartbeat.

“Still alive.”

**—o—**

Eren Jaeger was no hero.

But he tried, for he felt that the world wanted to design him so. Because when Dad drank his heart away and drowned his thoughts with scotch and vodka, his son was the one to lug his heavy stench through their home to his bedroom, where he watched his father crumble onto the small bed with a groan, with a whisper.

“Carla, Carla,” reverberated the alcohol in his breath.

His hands reached for a woman that was not there, a ghost Eren carried on his features. And he wasn’t a hero, and still he undressed and bathed his father, wondering how such a man, such a giant, dire presence could be dwindled to this. Replacing his father’s glasses over his eyes, crouching so that he shadowed the lenses, his visage, Eren asked if he could keep his promises. Could Daddy promise to stay sober? Could he really, really do it this time?

His father was many things, but he was not a liar. He hadn’t replied, instead just clasped the fabric of Eren’s shirt and wept into his shoulder. I miss her, he’d said. I miss her. As if he was the only one.

Fighting became futile when Fucking Samuel and Sarah Hale spewed slurs about Mikasa under their breaths, and he’d had to learn to soar above them, for it only pained her when he retaliated, when he was suspended from soccer for yet another season for breaking yet another nose and had to beg his way back into the team and his father had to pay for some other kid’s hospital bills.

“Carla, Carla,” he could hear him whining in his sleep. It seemed he wasn’t the only one with nightmares.

Eren wondered why now, why he’d been forged into this now and not years ago when Mom was ill and her skin was bruised and her bones always hurt and he could’ve saved her. Somehow. Just somehow. Reversed her pain and absorbed it into himself. And then it occurred to him that perhaps this was his new opportunity with Armin, this was his second chance. But how? How would he do it? How could he save anyone when he hardly knew how to save his mother? Himself?

“Carla,” Mikasa whispered once.

When Eren had asked who she missed most and they’d kissed under the moonlight, and his lips had found her skin and elicited an answer that shook the planes of her body, and they’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms only to wake with the sun tickling the clouds and the blades of grass that clung to their skins and hair and knowing full and well they’d both get grounded for staying out so late in the night.

Armin lost himself in his books, burrowed into the pages, etching every word onto himself like tattoos he memorized to survive, clinging to their message like he’d forget if he didn’t hold on tight enough, desperately enough. He read the same books over and over again, and for a moment Eren thought he had memory loss too. But then he sat down with his friend and gazed at the stars above them and heard him recite an entire chapter from his mind, and he thought of how sometimes obsessions are what keep us alive, what spur our bodies to keep going.

He had so many questions only Mom could answer. Like, what should I do? How can I help Armin? How can I make Mikasa happy? How can I keep Dad? Why did you leave so soon? Don’t you see the world is an empty place without you? Don’t you know I miss you with everything I am—every word I speak, every step I take?

Eren was no hero, for he yearned in his humanity. He ached.

“Carla, Carla.”

**—o—**

The days hobbled on, and Mikasa grew nervous.

She’d made the mistake of going to her ballerina friends for dating advice, for Eren and her had been together for nearly a year now and the only thing they ever did aside from the usual pecks on the lips was hold hands and take naps together. At confessing that, came a boisterous shout, a bewildered, “What!?!?”

“Have you _ seen  _ him?” her friend exclaimed, slapping a hand to her chest. She pulled her leotard over her body, slid her arms through the sleeves, adjusted her breasts so they pushed upward within the fabric. “How have you been able to keep a man like that without doing anything?”

Mikasa stammered. First of all, _ man? _ Eren was only sixteen! And  _ keep  _ him? She hadn’t known that he was in her possession. She was clueless when it came to these things. Full of naivete, she absorbed every word that came out of her friend, her eyes growing large when she leaned in to whisper in her ear and spew her secret.

Mikasa gasped.

“That’s how you lure, snatch, and keep him,” her friend grinned, and Mikasa opened her mouth to protest, when suddenly she added, “Your boyfriend is very good looking, Mikasa. If you don’t do something to keep him, someone else will.”

And she thought immediately of her parents. Of their divorce, what caused it. And she thought of Armin, how he’s slipping through her fingers, fading. And she thought of Eren, of his hair, his hands, his back, the lines around his eyes that indented when he smiled. And with a trickle of something unknown in her belly, she sucked in a large chunk of air and assured:

“I won’t lose him.”

**—o—**

Armin was throwing up everything he ate, groaning over the toilet bowl and spitting out the vile taste in his mouth.

His body was slumped forward like an old rag, limp and useless under Eren’s consoling strokes at his back. He kept apologizing, crying, apologizing. “I’m sorry, guys. I’m sorry.” And Mikasa could only sigh and pretend she didn’t see that it was blood he threw up this time, that when she ran her fingers through his hair, golden strands fell out in clumps.

I can’t lose him, she thought to herself, her eyes glued to his shivering back before darting over to Eren.

_ I won’t lose him. _

Moments passed and Armin finally stopped retching, and then Eren asked no questions, demanded no answers, simply curled his arms through the crook of his friend’s knees and back and carried him like a baby to his bedroom, smoothing his sweaty hair from his face when he sank into the pillow.

“Everything will be okay,” he whispered, knowing Armin wouldn’t hear.

Mikasa kissed his forehead, pulled the blankets over his body and told him to rest. Groggily, weakly, he nodded, bright blue eyes dimming behind the droopy, falling curtains of his eyelids.

Eren sighed.

They walked over to the living room, where Grandpa Arlert sat in his wheelchair and thanked them for their help.

“I’ll be here tomorrow,” was all Eren could say, Mikasa nodding beside him. She gazed down and realized that his hands were balled into fists, the veins by his knuckles flexing. He was angry. Angry at his best friend’s state. Angry that his grandfather was old and spent and could hardly care for him. Angry that bad things had to keep happening to good people.

“Thank you, son,” Grandpa Arlert said, gratitude glinting in his small eyes. He held eons of wisdom within them, the kindness of a soul that had transgressed through decades of emotions and knew how to hold them, filter them so that, unlike Eren, he could face the state Armin was in and not crumble into pieces. 

A tiny smirk slanted Eren’s lips as he held the old man in his arms and grunted when his embrace was returned with great fervor.

Mikasa smiled.

“Mik,” Grandpa Arlert said, wrinkles denting the skin around his eyes and mouth. “Come here.”

She hugged him, gasping when he squeezed her with surprising force. Everyone laughed, a cry of audacity in the grim atmosphere of this home. And then they promised to return, Eren waving goodbye to his only true father figure, to his best friend's caretaker, to the thin thread that held them all together despite its weathered ends.

The car ride home was silent. Carla’s old truck jolted as it ran over a bump on the road. 

Silence. 

Eren frowned at the road ahead. 

Silence. 

Mikasa sniffled, wiped her nose on her sleeve, peered quietly at the boy beside her. 

Silence. 

He was wearing his glasses and it struck her how much he looked like his own father despite being the exact replica of Carla; how his lips contained that familiar quirk that perked them up to one side so that he looked like he was smirking often, reflecting Grisha’s own permanent smile.

It was when they both sat on Eren’s bed that either of them spoke.

Mikasa.

“Eren,” she whispered. He wouldn’t look at her. She placed a hand on his thigh, said, “You are amazing.”

He snorted, slumping forward, elbows at his knees. “Hardly.”

“I don’t know what Armin and I would be without you.”

“Better off?”

“Stop.”

“Ah,” he groaned, plopping onto his back on the mattress. The bed swayed and dipped where his body lay. He threw an arm over his forehead, sighing. And then silence came. Silence and the steady rhythm of his breathing. 

Mikasa bit her lip and thought of what her friend had told her. She curled her body over his, grazing the shapes of his lips with her fingertips, lips she’d kissed countless times before, whose taste she had memorized even in her soul.

Feeling her presence over him, Eren slid his arm off his face and opened his eyes. He said nothing. Stared. His gaze scrolled over her, the edges and points of her face, the svelte curves of her torso.

And he kissed her.

Mikasa closed her eyes, let his hands slip into her hair, her own find his face and chest and belly. She made him noisy. Made him breathy. Grisha wasn’t home so she didn’t have to stifle her small whine when his tongue delved into her mouth and she curled his shirt inside her hands, tugging.

They spiraled on the bed, fueled by a hunger that had never touched them. It alarmed her when the ends of his hair grazed the curves of her neck, when his hands bunched up her skirt and slid it up her legs. It was all happening too fast, for he was experienced but she wasn’t, and she thought of breaking away when suddenly she remembered her friend’s words.

_ If you don’t do something to keep him, someone else will. _

Mikasa screwed her eyes shut and told herself to bear through it. It’s not like they hadn’t made out before, anyway. But it was when the line of the unknown was crossed and she guided his hand right beneath her shirt and anchored it atop her breast that he squeezed, and she gasped, and every atom in her body wanted to pull back, retreat, retreat.

_ Do you want to lose him?  _ a voice in her queried.

_ No, _ she thought, dragging her nails down the rippled skin of his abdomen, tracing the thin thatch of hair that led south. She pulled his glasses from his face to kiss his eyelids, his nose, his chin. Her every motion held him to her.

_ No, no, no. _

If this meant keeping him, then she was ready. She would do anything. Anything. So she bore through it and laced her fingers through his own, hand by her head as their kiss deepened and she thought of all the pain he must be going through with Armin, with Grisha, with everything. And she told herself that she could take his pain away, vanish it with this act alone. So she sacrificed her decency and sighed into his mouth, taken aback at her own noise of pleasure when his hands slipped beneath her skirt to grope the flesh of her thighs.

She bit her lip and hurried to wrestle her shirt off her body, exposing the bra she’d gotten specifically for this occasion, her chest stuttering nervously, belly clenching with her every pant. Eren’s body was heavy on top of hers, suffocating, when suddenly she lifted her hips so that he’d see her panties, see that her underwear matched, that she meant for this to happen. __

_ I can’t lose him, _ she thought over and over and over again.  _ I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.  _ And as his eyes ventured down between her thighs, she felt a flush of embarrassment, an urge to snap her legs shut and coil away. But all she did was hold her breath and wait for his reaction. When he didn’t move, she was the one who pawed at his skin, who clawed at him and pulled him in, held him closer.

Erase. Erase all the pain away.

Eren hesitated, frozen on top of her as she kissed her way down his neck, her hands fumbling with his clothes, when they dribbled down to his jeans and he stopped them.

“No,” he breathed, gripping her hands. “Stop.”

Mikasa froze.

“Mik,” he panted, wrenching her off of him. “What’s this?”

She split her mouth open only to let it stay like that.

“What’s this?” he repeated.

Mikasa sputtered helplessly. “Um, I— I thought we could do this now.”

Eren frowned. “Now?”

She felt a surge of embarrassment flood her chest, barely breathing, “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Well—”

“Why so suddenly? Mikasa, this isn’t like you.”

She pursed her lips together, crossed her arms over her chest and looked away. Eren sighed above her. She could still smell him. Still feel him. And the vestiges of his touch on her body felt invasive. Wrong.

She closed her eyes. “I’m worried about us.”

“Why?”

“I thought maybe…”

“What?”

“Maybe… if we…”

“Are you saying you thought having sex would cheer me up?”

“Well, when you put it like that—”

“Mikasa!”

“What?”

Eren groaned, sitting back on the bed and dropping his face into his hand. His hair was a mess, clothes wrinkled from her roving hands. Mikasa bit her lip and sat up beside him, wincing at his expression when she placed a hand on his back and he flinched away.

“Are you mad at me?” she asked him.

All he did was nod.

Mikasa panicked, her hand frozen between them, midway to reaching out to him again. She moved to retrieve her shirt and slip it over her body, thinking to rise off the bed, leave, render their relationship over—it was all her fault, all her fault—but then suddenly Eren grabbed her hands and brought them to his chest, saying, “Mikasa Ackerman.”

She blinked. “Yes?”

“Don’t you ever do this again.”

She wilted, ashamed of herself. “Okay.”

“I love you,” he said, staring deeply into her eyes, leaning in so close she could see the areas of his face that she’d kissed gleam with moisture. “But above that, I respect you.”

She wanted to cry. He kissed her palms, held them flush to his chest. “Promise me we’ll only do it when you’re ready.”

She nodded once, whispered, “I promise.”

And he sighed, relieved, leaning in to kiss her cheek. She closed her eyes when he lingered there, his fingers tracing the cups of her bra, the lines of her shoulder. She thought they could begin anew, try but really mean it this time, when suddenly his phone rang and vibrated on the bed. It blipped with copious text messages that chundered in one after the other without a moment’s breath. They were needed. An emergency.

Armin.

**—o—**

Everyone has their own way of coping with pain. Eren wasn’t sure what his method was yet, for when Grandpa Arlert sat with them in the hospital’s waiting room, staring down at the arms of his wheelchair, his voice ratcheted down to an inaudible slur, he closed his eyes and said, “Armin has cancer.”

And Eren’s heart did this thing where it lifted from his chest and then crawled its way to the very bottom of his body, leaving him pulseless and cold. He gazed beside him to gauge Mikasa’s reaction, but her features were hardened, stiff, emotionless in her shock. This was her method of coping. Of surviving. Ripping herself away from the truths of painful realities.

Eren didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, to chuckle at the irony of having yet another loved one succumbed to the throes of this illness or sob at the fact. A lump in his throat grew and stifled any words that meant to pass through, so that all that left him was a raspy, “What?”

Gramps told them everything. How it all began when he was younger. How he kept it from everyone so as to not burden them. And Eren’s blood boiled, his angry fists clenched tight, for how could Armin ever think so? How could he ever doubt his loyalty like this? His love?

“We need to see him,” was all Eren could say. And he saw his mother’s face. Her rattly bones. Her tender skin. The sickness that ate away at her until she was nothing but a limp, sick body on a vast white bed. And then he pictured Armin, and his heart rose back to his chest, fluttered with an uncouth surge of hope that moved him to whisper, “He’ll be okay.”

Mikasa looked at him. Her eyes were heavy but surprised.

“He’ll be okay,” Eren repeated with renewed confidence. He felt it in his being. It would be different with Armin. It  _ had _ to be. “This won’t kill him.”

“He’s had cancer on and off for a long time,” was all Grandpa Arlert could say, his stubbly cheeks sagged and lined with wrinkles, lines Eren traced intently with his eyes.

“Gramps,” he whispered. “Do you know what killed Mom?”

The old man’s eyes drooped sadly. “Leukemia.”

“No.” Eren shook his head. “Wrong,” he rapped, squeezing Mikasa’s hand when her fingers coiled around his palm tightly. “She had no hope.”

Grandpa Arlert stared at him. Said nothing.

“She accepted her death long before it came,” Eren continued, his hair all in his eyes. He looked so young. Just a boy. “That’s what killed her.”

“Eren,” Mikasa started, but he ignored her.

“Can we please see him?” he asked Gramps, moving closer so that he could catch the foggy veil that shadowed the old man’s eyes, the eternal calm that now wavered. “Please, Gramps. Can we see him?”

He seemed to think. The room they occupied smelled of antiseptic and stale coffee, bustling with soft beeping noises and murmurs that left the nurses’ mouths. Eren hated those noises. Those fucking hospital noises. They’d always filled his life.

Mikasa stood beside him, held his hand with both her own. She gave him a reassuring nod when he turned to look at her.

“I’ll go, too,” she said, turning her head to peer at Armin’s grandfather. “Please.”

_ Please,  _ every fiber of their beings whispered.  _ Please.  _ And it was then that Gramps shifted on his wheelchair and told them, “Wait here.”

They watched wordlessly as he rolled away.

**—o—**

Armin, their Armin, looked like a small twig amid the wrinkled trunk of the bed he laid on.

His eyes were closed. A thread of his hair curled and uncurled near his nostrils with every exhale and inhale. His eyelids were bruised and heavy, dotted with bursted veins from the force he’d expelled vomiting. 

Apparently, he’d puked so much that he passed out, so Grandpa took him to the hospital. And Grandpa couldn’t bear his secret anymore. And Grandpa told them and Armin went from being sick, to being sick and dying. And nobody knew how to process the collateral shift.

Eren sat quietly beside the bed, scooting over so that Mikasa could sit beside him. But she didn’t. Instead, she walked up to Armin and stared at his face, squinting as if she were trying to read something imperceptible. I wasn’t until Eren saw a droplet dribble off her chin that he realized she was crying.

He rose from the chair and curved his arms around her waist, hugging her from behind, and rested his chin on her shoulder so he could look down at Armin with her. They both stared at him, and her soft sobs jolted against his chest, his heart, so he closed his eyes and prayed for them to end soon, held her as she stroked his best friend’s face and prayed.

Odd, how he did that. In the face of death even non-believers turn to God.

“He looks so small,” Mikasa whispered. Eren kissed the skin behind her ear. She cried harder. “So tiny.”

“I know,” he said, his hands on her lower belly, feeling the sways of her breathing, dwelling in them—how alive she was and felt. “I know.”

She reached out and stroked Armin’s hair, sniffling. As she did that, Eren thought to shake him awake, to clasp his shoulder and rattle him and ask him and beg him to please, please, just be that boy in love with books and stars again. Wake up. Wake up. Just wake up and talk about the cosmos, about  _ Illusions _ , about anything that would usually bore him but Eren needed so desperately now.

It was then that blue eyes finally flickered open. Sleepily, the eyelids slid back, bearing two tired skies that gleamed in the light with moisture.

Mikasa gasped.

“Armin,” she whispered, promptly hiding her tears. Eren let her go.

“Mikasa,” Armin croaked, opening and closing his eyes slowly. He licked the chapped curves of his lips, rasping apologies. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“No,” was all she said. “Please, don’t be.”

Eren waited as they whispered their exchange, his arms hoisted against his chest, eyes cast far away from them.

“Eren,” was Armin’s sudden call, luring his eyes onto him. He looked tired and pale. Eren scowled.

“Why?” was all he could muster. “Why, Armin? Why didn’t you tell us?”

His best friend sighed, an exhale that sunk his bony chest. He went to move his hand, but all it did was pulse, barely registering movement.

“I didn’t want to be a burden,” he said sadly, the words barely leaving his mouth. “From the start, I’ve done nothing but hinder the two of you. I’m a burden.”

Eren’s eyes burned bright with anger. “A burden?”

“I’m weak. You guys always have to take care of me. I can’t keep weighing you down.”

“Listen to me.” Eren pushed forward to come close to him, so close he could smell his hair, his skin, his sickness. Narrowing his eyes, he demanded, “Don’t you ever keep secrets from us again, got it?”

Mikasa tensed at his tone. She laid a hand on his back. “Eren…”

“Do you understand me?” he pushed harder, letting out an exasperated breath when Armin looked away. “Do I have to speak louder?”

“No,” he answered quietly, voice quivering. “I understand you.”

“I love you, Ar,” Eren rapped. “I love you so much. I’ll protect you my entire life if I have to, and not once would you be a burden to me. Not once.”

Mikasa nodded at that. “Yes, Armin. Never. To either of us.”

Armin’s eyes were big and sad and lined with sleeplessness. “You guys…”

Eren interrupted him. When he spoke, he felt his mother, felt her presence in his heart, and from this intimate place within him, he poured out, “Listen to me. I don’t care how long this cancer lasts, we’re gonna heal from it together. Do you understand? We will be here for you every goddamn step of the way whether you like it or not.”

“I understand.”

“Having an illness does not exclude you from the right to have a life.”

At this, Armin’s eyes grew wide. His gaze stretched over the two of them. Eren. Mikasa. And it was then that he began to cry. He wept like a child, hiding his face inside his hands, his thin shoulders jolting with every hiccup and sob.

Eren’s voice was much softer when he spoke again. He lifted Armin’s hands from his face so that he would look at him, read his lips.

“You have to live, Armin,” he whispered, tears welling up in his own eyes. “Even when you’re sick. Even when there’s no point. You have to live.”

Mikasa was crying, too. And they’d done this before for Eren when Carla passed, for Mikasa when her parents split, and now they willingly held Armin.

“You’re not a burden,” Mikasa repeated. “You’re not. You’re not a burden,” Again and again, until Armin believed it. “Promise us you won’t keep anything from us anymore,” she pleaded, wiping a stray tear from her cheek. “Please, Armin.”

The boy closed his eyes and nodded, voice all sleepy and soft. “I promise.”

Eren straightened, jutting out his chest, perching his fists on his hips and threatening, “Cancer, get ready. We’re gonna kick your sorry ass.”

They laughed. Together. A small cacophony of lurching breaths and tears and snot.

And then Eren being Eren forgot that there were IV’s and a plethora of other things connected to Armin and he squeezed him tightly in an embrace, causing the smaller boy to gasp and cry out.

“Eren,” he groused. But there was no saving him.

Mikasa laughed quietly—that is, until Eren suddenly pulled back and added, “Can you believe Mikasa tried to sleep with me to cheer me up?”

“Eren!” she smacked his shoulder.

“What?” he said, towering over her, and it occurred to her that he’d undergone another massive growth spurt. She stared up at him through the cracks between her fingers and he said, “It’s kind of funny.”

She held her face in her palms as he laughed. “Oh, my God.”

Armin was laughing too. “Eren, you can’t talk about your girl like that.”

“I mean, I would’ve gladly done it but— _ mmrph!  _ ”

She covered his mouth with her hand, whining, “Enough!”

Armin giggled loudly, fluttering on the bed.

“I was following my friend’s advice!”

“What friend?”

“From ballet.”

“Oh, man. Did she give you any good tips we should try out?”

“That’s it. I’m jumping off this building.”

“I’m joking!” Eren kissed her, his dimple denting his cheek. “You know I’m joking.”

Armin stared happily at the two of them. And with a shiver in his heart he entertained the thought that perhaps it was okay, it was okay to want, to have, to lose—even while dying. That’s what life was, wasn’t it? Isn’t that what Eren wanted him to do? Live? Maybe he didn’t have to drown or disappear. He could exist with all his brokenness, all his sicknesses, and still be worthy of breath. Of Eren and Mikasa.

Armin did not know the future, but for once, that seemed alright. Even if it was only for the smallest, most fragile of moments. That seemed alright.

They were being so loud. Shouting. Laughing. Running around. And Armin felt like they were kids again, just a bunch of nine year olds without a care in the world. With no illness. No divorces. No deaths. In that moment, he felt a rush of sudden invincibility, for he garnered the strength of his friends. And what was cancer but something else to survive? Perhaps it was audacious to think so, but what if life could be survived after all? Sickness and everything?

“Dude,” Eren gasped suddenly, his eyes wide and set on Armin. “I got diagnosed with more shit. They think I’m bipolar.”

“Do you think you are?” he asked his friend, smiling fondly.

“Nahh,” Eren smirked, scratching his neck. “I’m just hyper.”

“Right. ‘Cause that’s how it works.”

“More like hypersensitive,” Mikasa added.

“Am not!”

“Oop. You’re being hypersensitive.”

“I’m just triggered!”

Armin scoffed. “You’re always triggered, Eren.”

“Heeeeeeeey.”

“You’re not even defending your boyfriend, Mik.”

“Because it’s true.”

“Heeeeeeeeey!”

Mikasa laughed so hard that snot erupted out of her nose. She snatched a tissue from the bedside table and cleaned it, then snatched another and dried what was left of the tears on Eren’s face. It was when she was wiping the sweat from Armin’s forehead that he leaned up to peer at her, and she gazed down at him tenderly. And she asked.

“How are you, Armin?”

He knew what she was asking. It was a question the nurses sailed at him countless times every day, one his own grandfather bombarded him with, one Eren uttered many times before. But he’d hardly heard it from Mikasa. Because she always knew the answer, always had so much faith in him. Always trusted that the answer would be that he’s still okay. That he’ll make it. So when he grabbed her hand and held it to his chest, she crinkled with joy and a smile. All of them did. And they looked at one another. And he responded.

“Still alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaa the infamous noy quote. "still alive." considering canon right now and season 4 just about to come out, i'd say most of us are barely clinging. additionally, canon eren has changed so much. i miss the days when he was so fierce about being a protector. in a way, i think he still is. 
> 
> anyway, this chapter's one to jot down under the list of 1000000 reasons to cry over noy eren. i know i birthed him, but sometimes i want to cradle him to my chest and tell him everything will be okay. armin, too. and mikasa. i hate myself. 
> 
> as always, thank you for being here; for reading and staying and seeing this through. your words and support keep the weekly updates loyal. i can't tell you how many times i've wanted to give up.
> 
> see you next week,  
> nati


	25. As the World Changed, So Did We

Clamped fists draw white streaks in the air as they pelt the stiff punching bag, pummeling its jolting, shivering frame with every raw blow and nothing but pale gauze keeping bruised knuckles from drawing blood.

Before the bag, it had been walls.

Eren’s hands ache and bash and hammer, weapons he’s forged since he was just a child brawling with the world. Even then, he thinks. Even then. And as he pants through the pain, through the sweat, he fights against his own body, punching harder, pushing harder. He sees how easily it bruises, how easily it hurts. Realizing he’s tired, he battles even more. Strands of his hair cling to his cheek, droplets dripping off the tip of his nose to land on the matted floor with sounds that echo. 

Thump. Thump. Thump.

He dribbles from his forehead, chest, arms, drenched in a rain of his own making. Alone, all alone, Eren grunts when he lands a punch the wrong way, the force of it coursing up his forearm and stinging in his veins. 

“I’m sick,” he says, as if uttering the fact would subside the ache somehow. 

He’s sick.

It’s when he thinks of Armin, of his mother, that his dewy forehead meets the leather lining of the punching bag, his hands outstretched, holding it still.

Everything is quiet.

He can feel his own heartbeat, footsteps that rattle in his chest with mighty stomps that go nowhere. He remains within himself despite how direly he wishes to escape, to tear free of this skin, this illness. And he’s been so comfortable with death, with the idea of it, for so long. But now Mikasa’s in his life and he finds himself afraid, clinging to every gasp and whisper and breath. Wanting to live. His lips part to usher a long sigh when, as if on cue, she materializes behind him.

He feels her.

Smells her.

Before he even sees she’s there.

In her expensive perfume and leather boots and fancy tote bag, with her long hair pulled back into a neat bun and her eyelashes wisping outward like tufts of black lace. She blinks. She smiles. And for a second, Eren thinks he’s imagining her, fathoming her presence the way that forlorn hearts sometimes do.

“Eren,” she says when he turns, her gaze scrolling over the entirety of him. She stares at the sweat that glistens on his scars, the lines of his heaving stomach, the broadness of his shoulders and his chest. And he loves it, how she looks at him. Takes him in. With knowing eyes that scour all the way to the bone.

“Mikasa,” he says, wiping his forehead with the edge of his wrist. “What’re you doing here?”

“Hitch said you weren’t home,” she answers, her voice a silken tendril unfurling between them, lisp and soft. “So I knew I’d find you here.”

“You stalking me?” he teases, smirking when she rolls her eyes.

“Not at all.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I needed to see you.”

“So you’re stalking.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Huh?”

“Your hands.”

Surely enough, when Eren looks down at his hands, he sees that the white fabric around his knuckles dots with small red circles. He hadn’t even felt it. Hadn’t known. Dumbly, he stares at his own blood until Mikasa takes his hands and begins to uncover them. She’s smooth against his calloused touch, unveiling him. He winces when she runs a fingertip around the raw flesh, whispering, “How long have you been fighting?”

Eren smiles. “All my life.”

She snorts. “I meant in here, Eren.”

He laughs but says nothing. Maybe she knows he’s been stuck in here all morning. Watching her, seeing how her eyelids flit with every tiny blink, Eren wonders whether she knows he’s sick too, the way she sensed it all around Armin, around Mom. She parts her lips and lifts her eyes to his and he thinks she’ll tell him, say _I know. I know. I know what you are and I still accept you and I will stay with you and I will never leave you, never._

But what parts from her mouth instead is, “Do you have a first-aid kit around here?”

They do, but Eren shakes his head. “I don’t need it.”

Mikasa sighs, her body shrinking with the exhale. Eren simpers at how small she is beside him, this strong fervent being all parceled into a meager frame. Her fingers clench around his hand, and she frowns at his open skin as if she could cure him with her gaze. She looks so worried. He snorts at her expression and coils his hand around hers, pulling her into a tight embrace and squeezing.

Gasps. Grunts. “Eren!”

“I’ve missed you,” he murmurs into her hair, grinning when she slaps his sweaty bicep.

“You’re all sticky!”

“I know, isn’t it great?”

“Eren, gross.”

“I needed to see you, too.”

“You need a shower.”

“It’s only been two days, but still.”

“Two days since you showered?”

“Since I saw you, silly.”

“Oh.”

They both laugh. Her arms curl around his shoulders, palms at his sweaty back. He feels them pat him gently, a friendly gesture he plays with in his mind. Now that he’s ill, is he allowed to be brash? To imagine her nails cutting paths along his spine, that one time after ballet when they’d snuck backstage and she covered his mouth to silence him as he’d moved in her? Her skin sticks to his, and he muses at the thoughts in his head, forgiving himself because dying men are a bit more desperate, he supposes. 

She’s biting her lip when they pull away from one another, stifling another tiny laugh. Eren can’t help it. He boops the tip of her nose with the pad of his finger and smiles when she wrinkles it in response. And suddenly all of his pain, all of the blood on his knuckles—numbed away.

“Go shower,” she tells him quietly.

He snaps the waistband of his sweats around his hips. “Roger that.”

And he turns to walk away. Ridiculous, truly, how quickly his mood shifted upon finding her there. He can feel her eyes on his back, drilling holes through the bare expanses of skin and muscle. When suddenly, she stops him. When suddenly, she says, “Wait.”

Says, “Can I stay?”

Says, “Here. With you?”

Eren stops and turns to look at her. He can still smell her on his skin. “What for?”

Mikasa’s so quiet, he barely hears her. She’s wringing her hands together. Chewing on that lip. “I know you have training today. Can I stay and watch you?”

Eren’s dimple flashes. “You’ve got nothing better to do, huh?”

Mikasa throws her hands up in the air, a rare, dazzling smile splitting her mouth. “Guilty as charged.”

Eren steps toward her but catches himself before he falls. Everything in him wants to tumble and pull in, to bring her close and taste her—remind himself of all he wants, all he is. Because ever since he discovered that he’s sick, he’s had trouble containing himself. He’s a fuse, threatening to burst. Wailing and hissing and spitting out fumes. 

Dimming his demeanor, Eren sighs, “Sure.” And he smiles. And he contains. And when he opens his mouth again he almost tells her everything, tells her he’s dying and that he loves her and that if it were up to him, he’d tack her to him so that she’d never leave again. And he loves the way her eyes cling to his body, how her cheeks pinken and she stiffens, clears her throat.

How did Armin not go around kissing every pretty girl he ever saw after being diagnosed with cancer? How was he not spurred by an overwhelming bout of courage in the face of death? Where once it was smoldering coals that flickered in him, now Eren blazes, hot with longing and with need. As Mikasa stands there in all her silent grace and grazing aura, he lets himself venture: What will she do when she finds out? Does she already know? Would she finally stay with him? Could pity transform to love?

With that, he realizes he’s too desperate. 

Worlds and worlds away from her, the distance is still not enough to hide how she peeks at the v-shape along his hips before closing her eyes and sighing. Eren thinks of teasing her, playing with the ruddiness on the apples of her cheeks. But he simply stands there, and he tells her, “Sure, Mikasa. I’d love that.”

**—o—**

The gym is teeming with childish squeals and giggles, a chorus of shouts and little grunts that rise over the sound of Eren and Ymir training their younglings. It’s their job, but somehow the two manage to make it seem like they are playing, guiding the large band of children through different moves, all foreign to Mikasa, a dancer, whose self-defense is lavish pirouettes and jumps and twirls. 

She watches patiently from the bleachers, thinking of Historia, her offer, her “come to the theatre on Friday at five o’clock,” because “Daddy has an opening in this Spring’s upcoming play,” and, “it’s time you dance again, Mikasa.”

Perhaps, she thinks, it’s time she does.

Gazing at Eren as he wraps up the session, she sparkles with all the different ways to tell him. She knows he’ll be content, anticipates his glinting eyes and his big smile, that one cirrus of hair that falls over his face when he laughs so that he looks so much younger. And her body feels so bright where he’d touched her earlier, where his arms had clenched around her, kept her here, kept her still. And she feels both scared and terribly content, because at twenty-six, ballerinas are retiring, not beginning anew. It’s a wonder Historia managed to find her a spot in this Spring’s upcoming play—or, well, an audition, to say the least.

Who’s to say she’ll even land a role?

She clears her throat, descending the bleachers to grunt into Ymir’s tight, sweaty embrace. Her freckles are shaded little dots all scattered under the faint glow of sweat. Some small children cling to her legs, vivid and excited.

“Sensei,” they squeak. “Sensei!”

They hug for a moment longer, then talk briefly about the get-together Sasha’s having tonight, about Historia and her offer. And when Ymir is finally free of all the tiny gripping hands, she asks her, “You gonna do it, Mufasa?”

Mikasa feels herself nodding, feels the words erupt straight from her chest. “Absolutely.”

“Have you told Eren?”

“Not yet.”

“He’s gonna be so happy.”

“I know.”

“Go tell him.”

“I will.”

When her eyes scroll over to where he stands, she sees him chattering away with some parents. Coyly, slowly, she makes her way to him, her news reverberating in her chest, vibrating behind her teeth. _I’m going to dance again, Eren. Just like you wanted. Just like you said. Are you proud of me?_

_Please be proud._

_Please, please be proud of me._

His eyes pull away to land on her, calm and scrutinizing. “Hey, stranger,” he smiles, to which the child at his feet promptly squeals.

“Mr. Jaeger,” she peeps, clasping his pant leg in her small hands. “Is that your girlfriend?”

Eren looks at Mikasa. She feels her cheeks go aflame.

“No,” he says benevolently, patting the child’s unruly hair. “She’s my friend.”

“Like, your _girl_ -friend?”

“No,” he answers sweetly, smiling at her parent. “Like, my buddy.”

“Ohhhhh,” the kid gasps, her tiny eyes rolling up to Mikasa. She studies her for a moment before motioning for Eren to come closer with her little finger. When he’s crouched down to match her height, she whispers something in his ear.

His eyes go wide. Then he laughs and says, “Alright. Someday, I will.”

Despite herself, Mikasa knows she’s blushing. She hides her face in her scarf, peeking up at Eren when their little exchange is done. The child potters away with their parent, squeaking imperceptible things. They’re all alone now. 

“Children love you,” she says dumbly, cringing at the quiver in her voice. 

Eren’s smile is big, the way it always is when he means it. Mikasa stifles the urge to trace his dimple, to sketch the outlines of his lips with her fingertips. She clears her throat and moves closer so that she smells him, senses him, inhales his soapy citrusy scent. 

“Eren,” comes her voice, and it’s hazy, barely clear enough to reach his ears. “I need to tell you—”

“Was I good today?”

“Huh?”

“With the kids.”

“Oh. Yeah, you were. Why?”

“I worry.”

“About?”

“Them.” He pulls a lock of hair from her cheek. “You.”

“Oh.” Mikasa scoffs a little laugh, and when her eyes close she sees him shimmering behind her eyelids, sees their shaky hands clamped together backstage after ballet, her body tightening as she straddled his lap and covered his mouth and—

She clears her throat.

And she says: “I’m going to dance again.”

There’s a second or two of silence. Even the small gym seems to go quiet, a hushed thrum behind them that blurs. And then, gradually, a dim sort of light floods Eren’s face. His eyebrows lift and he says, “Oh?”

“Yes,” Mikasa gasps, realizing she’s shaking. With her breath high up in her lungs and something faint and secure fluttering in her belly, she takes in a breath and closes her eyes and says again, “I’m going to dance again. Just like you told me to.”

She’d expected laughter, joy, anything but what happens next.

Eren’s eyes rim and glow red with tears. Mikasa gasps at the sight of them, moves closer to console him but he shrinks away.

“I’m sorry,” he laughs quietly, dragging his thumb and pointer finger along the bottom of his eyes. “Holy shit. What’s wrong with me?”

“Are you crying?”

“No.”

“Eren, don’t cry.”

“Just— Please, ignore me.”

“I won’t.” Mikasa brings a hand to his arm. She can feel the lines of muscle in his forearms, the veins that protrude and run along his skin. With a curious start, she wonders when it was that this bubble of safe distance between them had been popped, when touch like this had been deemed acceptable. 

She knows she shouldn’t, but she doesn’t care. In front of everyone, Mikasa cradles one side of his face in her hand and turns it so that he’ll look at her. And when he opens his eyes again, they’re all green and blue and breathtaking. They’re pure. 

She wants to kiss him. 

She feels herself panic slightly at the thought—but it is timid and sincere. So primal. Like the simple urge to breathe or think or blink. She bites her lip and leans in close and tells him, “Thank you for being my friend. I never would’ve had the courage to try again without you.”

Eren smiles through a small release of breath.

And he shrinks.

And he lets go of her.

Surrender. Full surrender. This is what it is.

“It’s no problem.” He holds her wrists and pulls her touch away from him. Mikasa knows him well enough to sense there’s something he isn’t telling her. She wants so badly to break his truths free, to savor them in her mouth, on her tongue. The desires surge through her far too quickly for her to catch and push them back into the secret corners of herself.

He makes her so honest. So raw.

Dizzy with longing, Mikasa takes in a deep breath, hands falling stiffly to her sides. What is wrong with her? When it was that her composure began to fray this way? Being with him sends something sprinting through her system, kissing her every nerve end with little lightning sparks.

When did this start?

Does she even have the answer to that question?

Was there ever a beginning to this feeling at all?

“What’s wrong?” she asks him, catching the fresh tears that well up in his eyes. And he looks so young. Honest. “What is it, Eren?”

“Nothing.” He silences her with a sniffle, with a kiss on her cheek. “I’m just proud of you. I’m happy, that’s all.”

Mikasa doesn’t bother to hide how she’s staring, how she doubts, how she lingers when he tears free of her and excuses himself to walk away. He says he’ll see her tonight at Sasha’s. Then leaves her. Absentmindedly, her palm meets her cheek to hold the place where his lips had been. She stands there, transfixed with a want that was not met, with the desire to have turned, slightly, slowly, and brought his mouth to hers in the name of unmasking what they both suspect. What neither of them know how to pronounce yet. 

**—o—**

“Everyone, shut the fuck up!!!”

“Ymir. Ear drums.”

“Sorry, baby.”

“Guys, seriously. Stop talking. Stop talking!”

“Oh my god! What? What is it?”

“Truth or dare.”

“Again?”

“It’s the best drinking game!”

“I hate this game.”

“We know, Bert.”

“Okay, so who starts?”

“Eren.”

“Why’s it always me?”

“Papaya fuckers always go first.”

“Ugh.”

“Truth or dare, man?”

“I’ll go with truth.”

“Why’re you always doing truth?”

“I stopped trusting all of you after last time.”

“What happened last time?”

“Well, Mikasa, he—”

“Okay! What’s the question?”

“Um…”

“Think of something.”

“Um—”

“I know! Eren.”

“What.”

“What’s the craziest place you’ve ever had sex?”

“Dude, why—?”

“And why was it with a papaya?”

“BAHA!”

“Good one, Sash!”

“Guys, cut him some slack.”

“Eren, what is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Eren, say it.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“What’s the craziest place you’ve ever had sex?”

“I’m not saying it.”

“Why?”

“Eren, say it.”

“Nope.”

“Eren, say it.”

“I’ve never had sex.”

“YOU FUCKING LIAR!!!”

“ _Ymir._ ”

“Eren, say it.”

“No. Give me another question.”

“Eren!”

“Since when are you shy about this stuff?”

“Hitch, what’s the craziest place he’s ever had sex?”

“How would I know?”

“Mikasa, what’s the craziest place he’s ever had sex?”

Silence.

“Oh.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Are you— Are you guys blushing?”

“I’m—”

“Holy shit, Eren, Mikasa! You’re blushing!”

“Eren can blush?”

“He’s still blushing!”

“I’m leaving.”

“No! Come back!”

“Great job, guys. You broke him.”

“Wait, I know what it is! I know the answer!”

“Eren, say it.”

“He’s not in the room anymore.”

“Where’d he go?”

“Mikasa.”

“Where’s Eren?”

“Mikasa.”

“I know the answer!”

“He’s literally not even here.”

“Go get him.”

“EREN!”

“Reiner, go get him.”

“I hate this game. I hate this game.”

“Okay, fine. Next person. Mikasa.”

“Yes?”

“Truth or dare?”

“Da—”

“What’s the craziest place Eren’s ever had sex and why was it with you?”

“Fuck off.”

“She cursed!”

**—o—**

“We can’t sleep together anymore.”

Steadily, Eren’s eyes move up from his guitar to land on Hitch. Blinking at her, he catches the way her posture stiffens, how her back straightens and her shoulders square. And he hates that fucking look. She’s about to say something too honest. 

Her lips are pursed, parting only to add, “It has nothing to do with your…” She trails off, her eyes flitting here and there. They survey the walls of his apartment, the stacks of books, the mismatched furniture, until finally they land on him. “Your… pee-pee problems.”

“Oh, my god,” Eren groans. She moves to sit across from him on the coffee table. He can’t will his eyes to meet her, especially when she starts sputtering, “Trust me, Eren. I love our sex. I really do! It’s just—”

“I know,” he says, a weary sigh running through him. “I know.”

Hitch’s eyes soften on him. And there it is. The part he hates most when she’s like this. The part where she pities him and goes all coy.

“What?” she asks.

“Mikasa.”

“How do you…?”

Eren shrugs. “I’m a shitty person. And an even shittier liar. I know you all know about her.”

Hitch is quiet for a second. “You only get hard when you think of her, Eren.”

He's careful not to react. Mustering his blandest tone, he states, “Please, don’t remind me.”

Hitch’s chest sinks with a long sigh, the sleeves of her cardigan falling from her shoulders. She takes his hand and promptly places it atop her breast, ignoring his look of confusion and leaning in to kiss him languidly on the lips. 

A second.

Then two.

Then she’s wrinkling her nose and sitting back, pulling his hand away from her. “You see? Nothing.”

And she’s right.

“I can’t do this to you anymore, Eren,” she whispers, her breath humid on his face. “You should be with her.”

He scoffs, strumming a chord on his guitar. The vibrations of the sound ring in his ears. He can’t even believe he’s having this conversation right now. “Why does everyone conveniently forget the part where she’s almost married?”

“Who gives a shit, dude? You were there first.”

“No, thanks.”

“I’m seeing someone.”

She’d said it so abruptly, Eren thinks she’s joking. But when he lifts his eyes to look at her, he finds no cattish grin, no gleaming eyes, no playful aura. She’s serious. 

He blinks. “Who?”

“Marlowe.”

“For how long?”

“A while now.”

Eren shakes his head, setting his guitar on the floor and resting it against the sofa. Cringing, he asks, “You mean you were sleeping with me while you were going out with him?”

Hitch laughs. It’s robust, a spurt of giggles. “Technically, we stopped fucking _way_ before that.” She points to his pants. 

Eren nods. “Ah.”

With a lithe hand at his cheek, she whispers, “Eren. Eren? Look at me.”

He does.

“I love you. I really, really do. But you’re suffering. Please, talk to me.”

He shakes his head imperceptibly. “About what?”

Hitch is so close he can smell her, taste the sweetness of her words, the stinging aftertaste of her fervor. He thinks for a moment of how much they both have changed, how they went from strangers who talk to strangers who fuck to friends that now sit and stare at one another.

“What are you hiding?” she says, her voice light, merely grazing his ears. “What are you carrying? Please, let me carry it too.”

“You can’t,” he breathes, eyeing the way her eyebrows furrow, how her lovely face twists to an expression of worry.

“Why not?”

“It’s not your problem.”

“Eren…”

“It’s all good,” he laughs quietly, waving her away. “We don’t need to have sex anymore. I hope you and Marlowe hit it off, Hitch. I always knew you had a thing for him.”

And with that, he sees her in her ruby dress the night he met her, when he’d approached her dancing frame only to walk her home and find out they are neighbors.

And with that, he sees her standing on his doorway, her look of concern and equal annoyance at her being awoken at ass crack of dawn by his boisterous night terrors.

And with that, he sees her splayed open on the bed, sees her feline eyes fixed on him and tastes the endless pants that tumbled from her mouth and into his own the first night they slept together. 

And he can hardly believe that their little ordeal is officially over, that he’s no longer allowed to seek her out in the middle of the night, rap his fists on her door and anticipate her familiar heat to quell him, dull his aches. It seems that life is stripping him of all his comforts. When he goes to open his mouth to say more, to belabor on the fact that yes, truly, it’s okay not to fuck anymore even if he does thoroughly enjoy her company and he’s too shy and lazy to seek out another partner and it sucks to only be able to get hard at the thought of a girl he can no longer have, his words are cut short by the sudden landing of a punch at his arm.

He yelps, rubbing the reddening area. “Hitch, what the fuck?”

“You stupid idiot,” she seethes angrily, her nostrils flaring. “You smelling sack of idiot.”

Eren’s eyes grow wide, his mouth hanging slack where words fail to aid him. “Um?” is all he can muster. 

“God, you piss me off,” Hitch grumbles, her eyes spiraling in their sockets. 

Eren blinks dumbly, a hand still latched to where it hurts. “Explain.”

“You dumbass— I had a thing for you!”

“You…” Eren sputters, literally choking on his words. “Wait…” He tries again. “You what?”

Royally annoyed, Hitch flares her nostrils. She looks kinda funny, pouting and flaring her little nose. But what comes out of her mouth next is fully serious. She’s nearly glaring at him, the way people tend to do, expecting you to know and understand what they’re thinking.

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve liked you?” she asks him. 

Eren scoffs. “Me?”

“No, my grandmother. Yes, you!”

“But…” He closes his eyes, a wave of self-loathing washing over him. “Why?”

Hitch, never being one for gentleness, hits him again. 

“Ugh. Hitch, please,” he grumbles, flinching at the blow. But before he can retaliate, his friend is seizing his face in her hands, pressing her palms against the preens of his stubble.

“Eren. I need to tell you something.” She pauses for dramatic effect. And then, “You have no idea how wonderful you are.”

His eyes are dull and distant, fixed on her face. He stares at the tip of her nose, realizes he’s kissed every inch of her except for that. And he wonders why. Would that have been too intimate? Too chaste? Was their relationship that perverse that he wasn’t allowed to marvel at the tiniest of her details?

He sighs. “I’m hardly wonderful.”

Hitch goes on as if she had not heard him. “Don’t you ever wonder why we’re doing this for you? Why we’re helping you with Mikasa? We just want you to be happy. We love you, Eren. We just want you to be happy.”

He shakes his head. And he sees her. Mikasa. Sees her clothes from this morning at the gym and her hair and the tip of her cupid’s bow and he sighs, sighs and says, “I can’t keep lying to her.”

Hitch’s gaze hardens on him. “Then tell her the truth.”

“I can’t.”

“Fine.”

“Hitch! Fuck, are you going to keep hitting me?”

“I’m going to break this guitar on your pretty face, Eren Jaeger.” 

“Okay, fine. Fine.”

“Will you cooperate?”

“I’ll…” Eren scoffs. He’s literally two seconds away from pulling Hitch over his shoulder and carrying her outside so that she’ll leave him alone. Sighing, he capitulates. “Ugh. I will.”

Finally, her hands fall away from his face. There is silence. Their eyes lock and squint. Hers in concentration, his in annoyance. She takes a deep breath and says, “I am going to ask you some questions and you will answer them, got it?”

Eren guffaws. “Fuck me.”

Hitch begins. “When did you meet Mikasa?”

“I was nine.”

“When did you first kiss her?”

“What?”

“Answer me.”

He pauses. And remembers. Hears her young little voice echo: _I love you like the stars love the moon._

He says, “I was ten.”

“When did your mother die?”

“I don’t want to talk about—”

“Eren.”

The muscle in his jaw flickers as he tightens it. “I was ten.”

Hitch’s mouth drifts open. “Jesus.”

Eren doesn’t allow a second of silence. He goes to stand, stopping only when his friend's hand grips his thigh firmly. He dips back onto the couch. “Are we done now?”

“No. When did you first realize you liked her?”

“Mikasa?”

Hitch nods.

“When I met her.”

“That you loved her?”

“Same answer, Hitch.”

“You took her virginity, didn’t you?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does.”

“Why?”

“Just answer the damn question. Shit like that means a lot to a girl.”

“Yes,” he says. “And it meant a lot to me too, by the way. It’s not just girls that—“

“So you were many of her firsts.”

He’s silent.

“You were _all_ of them?”

“I was.”

“You saw her grow up. You grew up with her.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“And you lived together. This Armin, your friend, something happened.”

“Yes.”

“But that’s not everything. You lost more. Loved more. Something broke you.”

Eren laughs. “How do you know all this?”

Hitch shrugs. “Call it instinct.”

“Oh, okay. Are we done?”

“No. One more question.”

“What now?”

He’s never seen Hitch this serious, never witnessed the look that stretches over her face. In a voice he cannot recognize, she asks him, “Do you love her, Eren?”

He takes a deep breath, the smell of his apartment drifting into him. With an exhale, comes his answer. “I can’t.”

“That is not what I asked.” Hitch shakes her head, her voice lowering an octave, becoming a staccato. “Do. You. Love. Her.”

Eren sighs. And when his eyes go over his own home, he sees black spills of hair swaying with every dance, every step, every motion. Sees pink streaks adorn the ceiling, clacking heels echo off invisible footsteps on the floor. His own apartment has been decorated, painted with slivers of Mikasa’s presence, every time she’s ever visited etched onto remembering walls. They never forget. He never does. She’s here in all her ages—nine, ten, fifteen, nineteen, twenty-five, twenty-six. In all her versions, every moment of her life that has lived alongside his.

“I adore her,” he hears his own voice betray him, feels his eyes close at the truth. When they open again, they see Hitch. See her see him.

“Then fucking fight,” she whispers, barely a feather above silence. “What makes you think you’ve got the luxury of time? That you can afford to love people and not show them, not tell them? Before you know it, things disappear. But other things remain, love remains. Mikasa remains. _You_ remain. Fuck, that’s so important, Eren. So fucking important.”

He shakes his head and feels like crying. Feels like crumbling his demeanor and breaking his own walls. He wants to bleed, to ache, to be vulnerable. And he feels his own surrender coming, feels the tears begin to form and his voice crack with, “But it’s too late.”

Hitch laughs, an audacious noise that breaks the solemn ambience. “I don’t give a fuck who she’s marrying. You love her. You fucking love her. You were there first. Her first everything. And she’s here, she’s back. There’s a reason for that.”

Eren wipes at the tears forming in his eyes and runs his hands down his face. He feels his own stubble stab at his palms, wilting with a sigh that courses through the entirety of him. “I’m tired,” he says. “So tired, Hitch.”

“No,” she says. “You’re just avoiding the truth.”

Eren looks at her sadly. “I’m not.”

“You’re a hypocrite.” 

“Stop it.”

“You’re the one that always tells us to fight, so why aren’t you doing it?”

“Enough.”

“Answer me!”

“I’m dying, Hitch!”

All her seriousness, her fire, he persistence—gone. 

Her mouth falls open, little choking noises drifting out, words that fail to come to fruition.

It breaks Eren’s heart.

“It’s…” he barely utters. He can’t even look at her in the face. “It’s fucking cancer.”

“What?” Hitch gasps, and when Eren looks back up at her, he sees that she’s trembling. Her lower lip quivers, disappearing between her teeth. “No,” she sputters quietly. “Eren, what—?”

“I got what killed Mom,” he says. It’s a confession. The truth. He has held it for so long, so long, and now it pours right out of him. “Leukemia. I got it. I—”

“Oh, god,” Hitch whines breathlessly, bringing a hand to her chest. Eren’s eyes widen, gaping at her reaction as tears stream from her eyes. “Oh, my god,” she breathes again, and soon she’s falling forward and gasping with her sobs.

“Hitch,” Eren starts.

“No, no,” she cries, collapsing into his arms when he pulls her into him and holds her against his chest.

“Hitch…” That’s when he feels the tears spring to his own eyes. He holds her tight as she jolts and whimpers against him. Cradling the back of her head, he presses her closer to him. “I’m so sorry.”

They cry together. Hold each other. Her hands coil into his shirts and he wraps himself around her even tighter, burying his nose into her hair. She’s so real and she’s with him. And he’s still here. Even like this, even while hurting. He’s still alive and here.

“How long have you known?” Hitch sniffles after some time, her tears moistening his shirt. “How long, Eren?”

He closes his eyes, breathing in the top of her head. “A while.”

She pulls away from him. Her entire face is pink. “Why?” she says. Eren has never seen her cry. Not ever and not like this. She chokes back another small sob. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

He doesn’t answer. He’d thought he could carry this all on his own, but seeing her like this, seeing Hitch’s reaction, it only makes him wonder how the others would feel. How Mikasa would feel. How could he ever tell them?

Hitch gives him a tenderness he’s never seen in her before. With damp cheeks and a runny nose and shaking lips, she tells him, “Eren, let people love you. Let them help.”

“How? How can anyone help me?”

“Just look around you,” she shrugs, her face tightening as she fights to hold back more of her tears. “Look at all of us, Eren. Your friends. We’re all here for you. Always.” She sighs, and she looks like she could faint. Light and breathless, she takes his hands into her own, kisses them, whispers into them and closes her eyes so that it looks like she’s praying. “You are so vital. You’re so special, Eren. Please, don’t suffer by yourself.”

“Hitch, I love her.”

“I know.”

“I love her and I feel like I have no time. It’s hopeless.”

“But what if it’s not?”

“Are you saying I should hope to get her back?”

She shakes her head, a bubble of saliva popping between her parting lips. “I’m saying you _need_ to.” 

Despite himself, Eren breathes out a small laugh. Hitch smiles at that, and he stares at her. She’s so beautiful, always has been. And he feels this overwhelming need to protect her, to shield her from even his own hurtful truths. Remembering just how strong she is, he gives up. He cries again. Tears spill from his eyes and he feels himself uncapping. This is what it is to feel, he thinks. To allow. To be and let the circumstances of his life fully set in.

He’s sick.

He’s dying.

It’s all happening. It’s all true.

“People survive illnesses every day,” Hitch consoles him, wiping the tears from his cheeks with her thumbs. He wants to flinch away, to be strong, but he lets her hold him. “People fall in love again every day. Why aren’t you allowed to do the same?”

He opens his mouth but nothing comes out. In her hands, it’s okay to break, it’s safe to be weak. For once, just once, not be the strong one.

“Seek help,” Hitch beseeches him. “Get treatment. And tell Mikasa how you feel. Tell her, Eren. You owe that to yourself.”

Incredibly, he feels his heart flutter at the possibility, at the image of her features thawing with the knowledge. Or does she already know? Does she smell his love on him? But what if she has no idea? What if confessing himself gives birth to something new?

And what if it doesn’t?

“You don’t think she’ll hate me?” he asks his friend, to which she smiles tenderly.

“I think she couldn’t love you more.”

“Really?”

“Call it instinct.” Hitch shrugs a shoulder, and with that, their crying subsides. She places a gentle hand on his forearm, caressing the scar he has there, the thin blonde hairs that dust his skin.

“Tomorrow,” she whispers, as if her lips were setting a secret free. “You and me. We’re going to the hospital and finding a way to beat this fucking thing. I’m here with you. Every step of the way.” She kisses him, first on one cheek, then on his forehead. Against him, she murmurs, much in the way his mother used to do when he was a child, “You’re getting help, Eren. I don’t care what you say. I’m not just watching you die. You’re getting help.”

He closes his eyes at the sound of her voice, at the sensation of all the syllables and vowels grazing his face. Smiling, he tells her, “I’m gonna miss our sex.”

Hitch laughs. It’s such a lively, colorful sound. It flutters between them, a breath of hope and life. 

“Oh, and by the way? If you tell anyone about me crying for you, I’ll dice your balls into teeny tiny pieces. Got it, Jaeger?” Her tone is menacing, but when he sees her, she gives a tiny wink. And he loves her. Loves what they have. Loves that even in the face of so much sickness and death, amidst all the darkness, glimmers of light prevail.

“Yes, ma’am.”

**—o—**

You can’t ask her how it was that she found herself here, of all places, auditioning for a role in a play she didn't know existed just days before, standing in front of Christa Lenz and her father and and a dozen other eyes that dig into her through their cool, fixed gazes, taking in her every tiny jump and rush and lull.

You can’t ask her to explain how it is that she wills herself to move, how the mechanics of her body whir to form a fluidity and carry her through the motions; that sweeps her feet up into the air and elongates her limbs to a point as the music escalates, ever so gently, to crescendos and swells and twirls.

You can’t ask her to describe how it feels to dance again, to awaken an old ghost from a seemingly eternal slumber only to feel it consume her, drive her, pulse through her, and escape in panted breaths as her heaving chest billows and falls and she holds the final pose, all that came before just a simple fleeting memory, a flurry of activity belonging to her past.

You can’t ask Mikasa to express what it felt like, what it was, to see her name written beside the supporting role, second only to the main role, given honorably to Christa Lenz. Historia. Her friend.

“How did I get it?” she’d asked her breathlessly over the phone, with tears in her eyes and the shock of being alive rattling in her body. “Why me?”

“You really are much better than you think you are,” is all her friend told her. “Believe in yourself, Mikasa.”

And she hung up the phone.

**—o—**

**Miss Sasha:**

_ >> hi guys! good morning _

_ >> i added mikasa :) _

_ >> mikasa, say hi! _

**Mikasa Ackerman:**

_ >> Hello, everyone. _

**Braun:**

_ >> Hi! This is Reiner!! _

**YMCA:**

_ >> mufasa! _

_ >> wassup!!! _

**Con Man:**

_ >> mikasaaaaaa _

_ >> you’re one of us now ;-) _

**rhymes with bitch:**

_ >> hey girl _

_ >> welcome to the coolest flyest group chat of em all _

**Mikasa Ackerman:**

_ >> Thank you. It’s good to be here. _

**YMCA:**

_ >> she even texts proper what the fuck _

**Miss Sasha:**

_ >> eren, you here? :3 _

_ >> eren _

**rhymes with bitch:**

_ >> he never checks his phone _

**Mikasa Ackerman:**

_ >> Eren has a phone? _

**YMCA:**

_ >> uhhhhh _

**Miss Sasha:**

_ >> EREN!!!! D: _

**Braun:**

_ >> Someone call him _

_ >> Should I call him? _

**Miss Sasha:**

_ >> call him! _

**rhymes with bitch:**

_ >> eren answer us _

_ >> oh my god fucker just sent my call to voicemail _

**YMCA:**

_ >> j hgfkbhjgghuk _

_ >> bastard _

**Con Man:**

_ >> LMAOOOO _

_ >> i’ll try _

_ >> yo what the fuck!!! _

**Braun:**

_ >> I think he blocked you Connie _

**Miss Sasha:**

_ >> eren :’( _

_ >> eren _

_ >> eren _

_ >> answer us _

_ >> eren _

**jaegerbomb:**

_ >> image.jpg _

_ >> this is the best fucking sandwich i’ve ever eaten in my life _

**Miss Sasha:**

_ >> eren! :DDD _

_ >> ooo what is that??? _

_ >> is that HUMMUS :o _

**jaegerbomb:**

_ >> yep _

**rhymes with bitch:**

_ >> eren say hi to mikasa _

_ >> sash added her to the group chat _

**jaegerbomb:**

_ >> oh hey _

**Mikasa Ackerman:**

_ >> Hi, Eren. _

**YMCA:**

_ >> fucking periods at the end of sentences and everything _

**Miss Sasha:**

_ >> awwww _

_ >> now you guys can message each other all the time! :D _

_ >> so cute! :D _

**rhymes with bitch:**

_ >> how precious _

_ >> so eren _

**jaegerbomb:**

_ >> what _

**rhymes with bitch:**

_ >> back to that truth or dare question from yesterday _

**** jaegerbomb has left ****

**Miss Sasha:**

_ >> nooooooooooooooooooo _

**—o—**

Fast forward through weeks of ballet recitals, and the sun melts the snow, the trees stay perched in all their age and ancient wisdom, hissing against a warmer breeze. It’s still winter, it’s still cold, but the world has begun to thaw. The sun arises with renewed intent, reviving everything with each virgin light. The warmth it offers paints cheeks pink and sheds bodies of their copious layers, smoothing the white, hilled surfaces of streets to fine lines of mush and sleet.

As the world changes, so does Eren. 

His health is a bewildering thing. And he knows he’s sick, but his bones only hurt sometimes and his body bruises only when he goes too hard and Annie body slams him a lot, forgetting precisely what she’s dealing with. They all know now. They all know except Mikasa. And he keeps it that way for now. Plans to keep it that way until she’s done performing at the play.

Fast forward through weeks of ballet recitals, and the air’s frozen breath stiffens the clouds once more, and they cry fat clumps that bathe everything in blinding white, sheets of ice that make boots slip and tires skid and weather news advice for all to stay indoors. The winter seems never-ending, encrusting cars and old buildings with pale runes that look like the whole world is broken, cracked by the plunging temperatures and unforgiving chill.

As the world changes again, so does Mikasa.

She’s still in awe of how she managed to land the supporting role, and with opening night only a few calendar strokes away, she spends little to no time with her fiance and friends. But they understand. Eren understands. And this role is so much like her real-life one, as her character is mute and uses her body to communicate her emotions, dancing through the stages of life to convey her ever-expanding existence. In the play, however, her character meets a grim fate, falling in the hands of a jealous old king that falls for her and orders her execution when she rejects his love.

Fast forward through weeks of ballet recitals, and the time to perform has come. Everyone’s ready. Everyone waits. Their pented breaths in their throats and their eyes widening at the spectacle before them.

And as the curtains draw open slowly, slowly, slowly… so does the entire world.

Eren has never seen anything more striking. The theatre comes alive with lights that shift to beams that cut the ceilings, scattering and compacting to tiny stars that fall like scattered jewels. The orchestra begins to play, a single note elongated to a solemn cry that rejoices at the sudden collision of all the other instruments joining in, elevating it to a complete symphony. 

And with that comes Historia, her tiny frame strong and mighty amid the giant stage, stepping here and there before taking leaps and twirls that seem difficult but effortless. Her blonde hair is up in a tight bun, lithe body adorned with a lavish arrangement that practically glows in the light, all making her seem like some ethereal being dropped from heaven onto the earth. Her elegant poise is juxtaposed by the crummy appearance of all the other dancers around her, characters of a lower class. Historia’s character belongs to royalty. Tonight, Christa Lenz is the queen.

The story is all about her, but the audience gasps some moments later when a somber girl in rags lies strewn alone across the stage. Slowly, she rises, her back to the world, and her long, flowing hair is recognizable enough for Eren’s heart to somersault within him. For a moment, he is consumed by so much love that when she turns to face the audience, strong lights shining on her pallid face, he nearly crumbles into tears. The last time he’d ever seen her perform was almost ten years ago. Seeing her dance again is seeing her be born anew. This is a new Mikasa. This is a Mikasa of abandon, of art, of love, of language. A Mikasa that exists only when she’s dancing.

She moves.

And as she does, the music follows. She is the conductor, every sway and lift of her limbs leading each note and tune to drift up in one collective hum. It stops when she does, resumes when she dips low onto the ground and rises to bloom open, her petals long cloth that hangs from her twirling frame. She looks so light, her motions like feathers, titillating the eyes that watch her and glue onto the stage. She’s mesmerizing, a creature of tattered clothes and raspy violins, her face shifting with every new expression, with every meticulous bow.

Then the king appears.

And he chases her, and her gentle movements grow bold. Aggressive. She leaps and spins and runs and flusters when she’s trapped by him, her feeble demeanor growing brazen. Desperate. Strong. No, she screams with her motions. _No._ And she fights against her fate, against the forecul king, and she escapes.

The end of Act One is followed by an intermission, and Eren is a ghost coasting through the crowd of people with his friends. Ymir sneaks off backstage to find Historia and Sasha screams about how high Mikasa kicked her legs, Reiner and Bertholdt agreeing on her admirable flexibility, Hitch boasting how she knew she was skilled all along. But Eren hears none of it. His mind, his heart, is left behind with the girl in rags.

He finds his pulse again when Ymir takes his hand and leads him backstage and he sees her.

“Eren!” Mikasa smiles, her leotard shimmering in the light. It’s completely different from the outfit she had on earlier. This time, she looks like royalty herself. Her clothes are sewn with glinting lace, and even her pointe shoes—which clack woodenly on the floor with her every step—seem to be made exquisitely, threaded together from pure silk.

“Mikasa,” he barely breathes, watching as Ymir whisks away to find Historia among the flock of girls that are applying makeup on their faces and changing into their costumes. He knows he shouldn’t be here, but understands he’s only allowed the special access because he’s friends with the daughter of the man who owns the theatre.

“What are you doing here?” Mikasa smiles, high off her performance, her bolder makeup only halfway done.

“Ymir brought me to see you,” is Eren’s excuse. He halts, his eyes scouring the whole of her, trying very hard—and futilely—not to cling. “Uhh, to wish you luck.” 

She nods. “Oh.”

“Yep.”

Silence.

For a moment, all that can be heard is the murmurs of the girls getting ready. Some of them eye Eren suspiciously, others seem not to notice him at all, and he knows he should leave soon before he’s kicked out.

“Mikasa,” he blurts out through the nervous lump in his throat.

“Hmm?”

“You are…”

“Yes?”

“You’re…”

“What, Eren?”

“You’re so beautiful.”

Her eyes widen. Eren’s do, too. Is that what he had meant to say? Certainly, he does mean it. She truly is stunning—especially tonight. But… really? Really.

Smooth, Eren. Always so fucking smooth.

“Oh, Eren,” Mikasa smiles tenderly, bringing a hand to her cheek.

“I mean…” He clears his throat, stuffing his hands inside his jean pockets. “I mean to say…” The silence is awkward. Mikasa waits for him to finish. She’s so patient with him. “You were incredible out there,” he finally settles.

She smiles again. “You think so?”

Eren smiles, too. “I never thought I’d see you dance again. Yet here we are.”

“Yet here we are.”

“Mom would be so proud.”

“Yours or mine?”

“Both.” He pauses, flitting a stiff hand between them. “And Armin.”

Mikasa’s gaze goes all misty. Her voice is a mere breath when she echoes, “Armin.”

Seeing her reaction, Eren smiles brighter. He holds a hand to his heart, feels it beat ferociously. “I am, too.”

She laughs. It’s a childish, giggly laugh, the kind she used to give when she was little. “It’s all thanks to you,” she tells him, and she skitters slightly as if she were trying to move towards him, drifting in to touch him but… they shouldn’t, and they don’t, and they behave, both of them. They do not touch. They do not even flinch toward the other despite the overwhelming rush to do so.

Eren sighs, knowing it’s time for him to go. 

“Hey, do me a favor?” he asks her, to which she brightens up again. He laughs at her cute demeanor.

“Yeah?”

“Once this whole thing is over, come meet me at our bench?”

“Sure,” she nods slowly. “Is everything alright?”

Well, Mikasa, to tell you the truth, a lot of things aren’t alright. And he means to tell you tonight. To tell you he’s sick. To tell you he loves you. Because “ _What makes you think you’ve got the luxury of time?”_

Hitch had told him that.

Armin had told him that.

“I just have to tell you something,” he says.

“I’ll be there,” Mikasa smiles. She’s been doing that a lot.

“Sweet,” Eren does as well. And this time, he touches her. He gently—gently, gently—kisses her cheek. His breath on her skin holds her still. “Good luck.” 

Mikasa cradles his forearm with her hands. That’s it, that’s all she does. Yet the action keeps him in place. Holds him there as he closes his eyes and hears her whisper her goodbye—no, her _see you later_. 

**—o—**

She somehow manages to escape the band of people that bombard her when it’s all over, slinking into the changing room that bursts with a mirage of colors from all the bouquets Jean sent her. She dresses, hurries, not even bothering to take off her makeup, and scurries out into the night.

She hails a taxi cab to the park, and once she’s there, the place is oddly crowded for it being this cold. She finds their bench, sits, and waits.

Waits.

Waits and wonders what Eren could possibly have to say to her. Perhaps she has something to tell _him_. But what is it? Her chest is full of something, something that itches set free. She closes her eyes and feels the cool wind on her face and lets her soul speak for her, imagines him already beside her. And she breathes. And she says.

“I love you.”

Startled at her own words, Mikasa gasps and gapes at nothing. Her breath puffs out as steam and she slaps a hand over her mouth. How could she have said that? She wasn’t thinking! Surely, it was an honest mistake.

But she’d felt it.

But she can’t.

But she’d felt it.

But she shouldn’t.

Shaking her head, she starts over. Ignores what just happened. Ignores. Because when he appears, she’ll know for certain. Yeah, that’s right. Seeing him, once he tells her what he needs to, she’ll know exactly what she has to say back.

Except that it seems Mikasa would’ve been waiting for Eren for the rest of the night.

He never arrives. 

**—o—**

**** ********

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please bestow your eyes on the beauty that is tumblr user [saythanksplease](https://saythanksplease.tumblr.com/)'s art. i'm so lucky forever and ever to have had them create something like this ;-; i'm still crying. as usual, click on the art to be directed to the links so that you can show support to the artist! 
> 
> as for this chapter, i added stuff here and there, particularly the exchanges with mikasa and the gang. she's really grown to be a part of them now, and in turn enveloped in eren's life in a way that forces them both to be honest. also, i think his friends have corrupted her (lmao). i can't tell you how relieving it is to have these two dense dorks FINALLY give into what they still feel for each other. it's about time, damn it *shakes fist* also, hitch. tbh i.......really love her.
> 
> thank you, thank you. this fic nearly has 600 kudos and that is around what it had when the story was first finished. i appreciate you.
> 
> see you next week,  
> nati


	26. The Time We Said "I Do"

“Hey.”

“What?”

“Marry me.”

Mikasa’s gaze lifted from the center of his neck to the hairs of his eyelashes. One by one, she tried to count them, until they blurred to a collective tuft and she blinked. Smiled at him.

“When?” she said.

“Tonight,” he said.

“Tonight? At prom?”

“Yes,” Eren told her. He was already tipsy, a result of pregaming with his friends as a form of compromise. They were bitter that he wouldn’t tag along with them to prom. He had a girlfriend, he kept having to remind them. A wife. They’d whooped and sputtered lewd profanities at that. But Eren was very good at ignoring.

With the faintest hint of a slur leaking through his lips, he pushed Mikasa’s hair back from her forehead, and he breathed, “Tonight, Miki. Marry me.”

She smiled. And laughed. And they were young enough to make these kinds of jokes and mean them. To say these kinds of things and think they actually meant something true.

“I’ll marry you,” she said, smiling through the shining affirmation. “Tonight and later.”

“Later?”

“When we’re older. And legal.”

“Right.”

She lifted the skirt of her prom dress in her hands—a strappy assembly of pink frills that fell to her ankles—and hopped onto the curb to avoid a broad puddle between them. She walked toe-to-toe in a straight line, holding Eren’s hand to keep her balance. Lines of her hair fell around her face as her eyes focused down on her feet, the white heels she’d tied them into so that her ankles quivered with nearly every step. She was a ballerina, but clearly not accustomed to being on her toes. Eren smiled at her clumsiness.

There was no trace of alcohol in her body, unlike Eren, who had miraculously managed to get Armin to knock back a shot with him before leaving—some mysterious spirit the poor boy was quick to spit back out. Sobriety and all, all her grace abandoned her that night so that when Mikasa tripped and stumbled into Eren, she fell into him, and he caught her, and they both giggled, and then they ran.

**—o—**

Prom was a cinch.

It went by so quickly. Partly, because they spent a total of twenty minutes there before calling it quits. But mostly because they didn’t really care for it. 

Prom was exciting in theory, but physically, it meant guys eyeing Mikasa all weird and too many people trying to talk to Eren and Sarah Hale glaring at both of them. Not worth the twenty-five dollar tickets. Not worth the snacks Eren kept stuffing into his face to sober up. Not worth the dance floor when sweaty bodies kept rubbing up on them.

“Hey,” Eren said into her ear, speaking a tad bit louder so that his voice broke over the music. His breath was hot, steam that fogged her skin. “Wanna get out of here?”

Mikasa’s nod was nothing short of vigorous.

“Great,” he grinned, then locked their hands together. They squeezed their way through the band of people and ran out into the parking lot to find Carla’s old truck. Mikasa was quick to abandon her heels, chucking them onto the back seat and laughing so much her cheeks began to ache. There was something special about her when she laughed like that. She laughed the way all flowers bloom. How a garden opens.

Eren rammed the key into the ignition, twisted it, and the car purred (coughed) itself to life. 

“Where to, Miss?” he turned to face her. His bangs fell all over his eyes. Mikasa swiped them away from his face.

“To space,” she told him.

“Which part?”

“Um…”

“Did you get that from a—”

“Moon.”

“Huh?”

“The moon.”

Eren nodded.

And with that, they drove away.

It was too dark to gauge their surroundings when they made it off the main road home, but Mikasa soon recognized where they were heading. When Eren pulled into a small clearing, the truck’s headlights met the body of water they’d claimed as Their Lake. The entire world was theirs to claim. Benches, meadows—anything that meant something to them. Including each other.

The ground crackled below the tires as they rolled to a stop. When Eren parked the truck among a bed of leaves, killed the engine, turned to face her, Mikasa’s heart gave a giant, happy leap.

His gaze held the sky over her head. She cradled his cheek and passed her thumb over the corner of his mouth. He was so warm. So very much hers. His scent filled her senses when he inched in to kiss her on the lips. He kissed her once. Twice. Then told her, “Let’s get married.”

Mikasa smiled into his mouth. “Here? Now?”

“Here. Now.”

“Let’s do it.”

And they were just kids, just kids that loved and felt and dreamed and wanted. And they were happy to bounce off the truck and into the night, where they shed their clothing and submerged their bodies into the frigid water, yelping and screaming, laughing so loudly.

Mikasa walked in deeper, dipped in lower, felt the coldness roll over her skin until it covered every bit below her head. As they swam, they were careful not to peek, careful to keep their bodies at a distance. Eren wasn’t as shy as her, but they’d never seen each other in such unguarded ways. They’d swam like this before, but something had changed. The night seemed to whisper around them. It breathed things neither of them knew yet.

With tentativeness and fragility, Mikasa parted her lips and thus pronounced, “Eren?”

He dipped his head into the water. When he resurfaced, his hair was slicked back over his head. He looked at her. He spoke. “Yes?”

“I love you.”

Eren blinked. All that could be heard was the steady rhythm of breathing, the chirping of nightlife, the soft motions of water and bodies. Then, he began to make his way to her. In long, slow strokes, he swam closer and closer, his head above the surface so that Mikasa could see the features that cleared as he drew nearer, until she recognized the entirety of him in the night. When he was in front of her, standing solid and secure, she could capture just how blue his eyes were. Even in the darkness. She could see him as a whole.

The seriousness in his expression split apart with the beam that broke across his face. He was glowing.

“I love you, too, Mik.”

She smiled. “Like the stars love the moon?”

“Always.”

Mikasa was the one to come closer now. She drew in until she could look up at him from the tops of her eyes, see the droplets that ran down the corners of his face and clung to his lashes. His seriousness returned to him. There was no dimple or crinkle or beam. Just the way he watched her, the way he breathed.

In the water, they began.

“Mikasa.”

“Hmm?”

Her breath hitched when she felt his hands grab her waist underwater. His grip on her was loose enough to let her move freely, but tight enough to never let her go. She closed her eyes, sighing out the remnants of her nervousness.

Eren grinned. A droplet ran along his dimple. He asked, “Do you take me as your husband?”

Mikasa snorted softly, her nose wrinkling with her smile. Her fingers traced up the muscles of his arms, anchored themselves atop his shoulders. She nodded. “I do.”

Crickets and moss and the faintest of breezes: their only audience that night. Eren lifted a hand to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, and before his lips could part to usher more, Mikasa was speaking again.

“Eren,” the girl whispered, closing her eyes when his hand held her cheek. The pad of his thumb traced the pale, flawless length of her cheekbone. “Do you take me as your wife?”

He didn’t even spare a moment’s breath. “I do.”

And they tittered quietly.

And they kissed.

And cheering roared all around them, all the leaves turning and hissing with applause. And as they tip toed their way out of the lake, sheepishly covering their bare bodies, simply throwing on their garments before heading home, their vows were signed onto an invisible contract, one that wove them together. For the stars, the wind, the moon—they claimed it so.

**—o—**

“Ladies first,” Eren motioned for her to enter his bedroom. His father was away, of course, so it was only the two of them in his unlit home, floating quietly among its walls with little whispers of giggles and secrets.

In the silence, their footsteps scurried, muted barefoots on the carpet floors. Eren didn’t turn a single light on so that only the moonlight spilling in from his windows reigned. It glowed on the crevices of her face, the slopes of her neck, her throat, outlining its bob when she swallowed.

“Eren,” Mikasa voiced softly. “Sit.”

And so he did.

His bed creaked quietly where he sunk unto it. He stared. At Mikasa, he merely stared. She stood quietly before him amid the center of his bedroom, all the contents and surroundings cradling her as the fixed center point that held him still. And she asked him to take his clothes off. And without another word, he did.

Eren rose and pulled his shirt over his head. He’d done this so many times before, done it for other girls, and yet he was a novice now, nervous and insecure. The fabric clung as it rolled over his clammy skin. He still smelled of salt water and leaves. When he was finally in only his trousers, he unzipped them, slowly, and then began to roll them down his legs.

Clad in nothing but his skin, he sat back down and watched Mikasa’s shadow as it shed his jacket from her shoulders and then began to undo the straps of her dress. It fell to the ground with a quiet ruffling of fabrics, pooling around her feet. As she bent down to remove her panties, Eren closed his eyes and inhaled through his nose, feeling the surge of breath rush through his body.

When his eyes opened again, the girl was sitting beside him. Her body whispered in the night, the slender edges of her figure breathing out for him. Eren yearned to reach out and touch her, feel her silent light, but he found himself to be afraid of the impulse. Her voice rose above the silence then, pulling him out from within himself. 

“Eren,” she said. “Touch me.”

He froze.

“Mik,” Eren sighed, his hands stiff against his thighs. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Even through the darkness, he could see her smile.

“You could never hurt me, Eren.”

Silence came again, and through its cracks, she reached for his hand and placed it amid the center of her chest. Eren felt the solidity of bone, of skin. He asked her, “How are you?”

Mikasa smiled again. “Still alive.”

He snorted quietly, remembering Armin’s famous words. He missed him. Armin was too sick to go to prom, but they’d visited him before leaving for the school and he had seemed content. Happy for them.

Eren wondered what his friend would say to him. They’d talked often of this moment, Eren’s nervousness around it, his hesitations and worries for when the time would come. And now, it was here. Mikasa was ready. And some weeks ago, Armin had told him that the best he could do was to take care of her, honor the sanctity of their first time, protect how much it meant for her to surrender her virginity to him. And Eren had promised to do just that.

“You won’t hurt me,” she reminded him.

So, slowly, his hand moved to her breast. He felt her small sigh, felt the softness of her skin, how her exhales ran through her. His thumb swiped along the small bud of her nipple, feeling it harden. He had never touched her like this before, drawn out the lines of her body to map out all her corners. He got lost, then. Lost in the way she moved closer, closer, to lock their lips together in a tender buss that united them.

Their kiss was meek, a small pulse of silence. She took his hand and guided it down her belly to settle it between her legs. It struck him how brave she was being, how out of the two of them, it was she who conducted it all.

Eren moved his fingers tentatively, gauging her every reaction, her every exhale, the nuances in her expression that shifted ever so slightly to indicate where to go, where to linger. And when it was time to kiss again, it was he who turned her onto her back so that he could eclipse her, ask for her consent once more. It was he who held their foreheads together and sank into her, who heard her gasp all sharp and sudden and curl up with a small cry.

Eren pulled back to check on her. Her lips were clenched between her teeth, brows furrowed in what seemed like a pained expression.

“Do you want me to stop?” he breathed.

Mikasa shook her head, her damp hair rustling softly on the pillow. “No, please. Don’t.”

“Tell me to stop if it hurts too much, okay?”

“Okay.” Her arms threw themselves around his neck. She pulled him in so close that he couldn’t look down at her anymore, only feel her. Only feel her breath on his ear as she whispered, “Keep going.”

So he did.

And they undulated, made music out of breathy, honest songs.

Closing his eyes, Eren wondered if he’d ever felt anything like this before, anything this close to such utter, gaping vulnerability. He heard her voice rise to notes he’d never hit before, felt her fingers play along his spine and strum at the chords of his being. 

They ascended to bodily completion, meeting on separate ends to connect in hums and echoes. Eren was raptured in such dense, syrupy bliss that it was indescribable. Pleasure washed over him in ripples of warmth that he’d never found in another body—not even in his younger, wilder days. 

Holding her close to him, pressing the strong smallness of her body into his, Eren promised himself that he would never leave her, never venture to search for himself in another person again. There, in her arms, he was safe, he was found. He never wanted it to be different. 

Eventually, though, he had to stop. The pain was too much for her, despite the grimaces and winces she kept trying to bite back. Even then, unfinished, Eren was totaled. Mikasa insisted that he stay, keep moving, but he promised her that they had time. They had all the time to keep loving and trying.

When an exhausted Eren fell and pressed his forehead to her chest, he felt each one of her heartbeats. Counted them. One by one, they filled him, so that her own essence could beat through him, swell him and release him and never let him go. He realized for the first time what it was to truly need somebody. To breathe somebody. And at that moment, Eren understood completely: he would love her for the rest of his life. He was as sure of that as he was of anything.

**—o—**

Eren was most genuine when he slept. 

Every frown, tear, and crease of harsh emotion vanished so that what stretched across his face was a purity that made him seem almost fragile. It was incredible, how he could still look so delicate after being burned and chiseled by the world.

His eyelids flickered subtly as he dreamed, silent wing beats against the surfaces of Mikasa’s lips. She took her time pressing kisses to all her favorite parts of him. From his forehead, to his eyebrows, to his cheeks and chin and nose, she pinpointed every inch that made him up so that she could fathom his entirety from mere memory. 

Her body reverberated everywhere he’d touched and been, forever changed in ways she had no language to convey. Watching him, feeling him, tasting how he breathed in his sleep, Mikasa closed her eyes and held her ear to his chest, right above his heart, the way she used to do when they were younger. To feel him there. Feel him with her. Savor the very pulse that rang inside him and seeped into her veins. And with every beat that pounded, she whispered. She prayed.

_Keep him with me, Kami._

_Keep him close to me forever._

The night snuffed itself out behind her eyelids, and with her own rest came a quiet litany, a fearless declaration of fire and life: _Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump._

_Ba-dump._

He could not hear her. And yet she told him.

“I will always be with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sniff* 
> 
> so. i rewrote this entire chapter in two days. i hated the original version, so here's this. i changed everything. somehow made noy eren even more painful. he tears my heart apart. also, thanks my child for helping me beta my last minute work. you're my gem!
> 
> i hadn't realized at the time when i first wrote it, but this chapter is a direct contradiction to what mikasa has with jean in present chapters. she really does truly, genuinely love jean, but eren is just something else. it's very challenging to write at times. 
> 
> speaking of challenging, the rollercoaster is coming. i remember the last 10 chapters of this fic absolutely GRILLED my ass when i first wrote them. prayer circle for our hearts and for my eyeballs. staring at a computer screen for hours and hours while editing and rewriting should be a sport in the olympics. 
> 
> i love you guys. thank you for the influx of love and support you never fail to give me. you don't know what it means to me. it keeps me posting and pushing and writing and smiling. *smooch* 
> 
> see you next week (hnnghhh),  
> nati


	27. The Princess and Her Curse

She takes flight on the second act, white lace costume glinting through the stage, capturing sunlight with pirouettes and leaps that make her seem like a small bird soaring through the air, dipping and gliding. And when it is all done, when the king orders her execution and the queen falls, the crowd breaks into a roar of applause, many standing and wiping at their teary eyes as the curtains draw shut and conceal the closing bows and kneels of dancers. 

But all Eren does is gather himself to leave—so abruptly and wordlessly that his friends can only stare as his figure disappears out of the theatre room. He has to go, to wait for Mikasa at their bench. Just as he promised her.

In the bathroom on the second floor, his eyes meet his own reflection. He looks tired. Feels tired. His hair falls around his face. It’s grown longer, marking the passage of time that seems to have escaped him. He thinks of pulling it back, of fixing himself for her somehow. But what’s the point? She's not going to care about how he looks. Only about what he’ll have to say to her. And he’s ready, he thinks. He’s ready to tell her everything he knows she wants from him and more.

In the elevator, as the doors roll nearly all the way shut, a man shouts for him to stop them. Instinctively, Eren crams a hand between the dwindling crack, and they jam, groan, pull open.

“Thanks,” the man says.

Eren looks up. “You’re wel—”

It’s Jean.

With his business suit and his slicked back hair and his chiseled cheekbones, he walks into the elevator, stands beside Eren, and smiles. It’s a sleazy, slow smile, the kind that knows something, that’s used to winning. It makes Eren uncomfortable. But he composes himself, smiles back.

“Hello, Jean.”

“Eren.” A nod. “I’m surprised you remember my name.”

“How could I forget?” is all he says. The elevator doors close, leaving them alone in a cramped box of limited oxygen. Eren hates having to share the same air with this man, so he goes to press on a floor on the keypad. Jean stops him.

“No, no,” he says. “We’re not going anywhere.” Moving closer, so close that Eren  _ tastes _ his cologne, he grins. “Mikasa was incredible tonight, wasn’t she?”

Eren nods slowly, wondering where he’s going with this. “She was.”

“And this is only weeks worth of practice. I can only imagine what she was like when she was younger. Was she good?”

“Yes.”

“Of course she was.” Jean cracks his knuckles. One by one, they pop. There’s a moment of silence, one last pop, and then he’s saying, “You know, before coming here, I watched her get ready. She woke up at dawn, even made herself breakfast. And she sang in the shower. She only sings in the shower when she’s really, really happy. But you know that already, yeah?”

“I do.”

“I can’t help but notice she’s awfully content lately. Giddy. Like a child. And I wonder why, you know? What changed? What’s made my wife change into this person I hardly recognize?” Eren thinks to say something, but before his lips can part, Jean adds, “Even sex is different.”

He flinches.

“I keep looking for things in her I recognize to remind myself she’s still the same, still my Mikasa. Like how she scrunches her nose and covers her face when she laughs.” A pause for breath and then, “She’s got this little mole on her butt. It’s real cute, right on her buttcheek. I always look for it when I’m doing her from behind. You know, to remind myself she’s still mine.”

Eren smiles painfully, an utter betrayal to what boils inside. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because, Eren,” Jean says, razor eyes cutting into him. “I think you already know all of it. Even about her little mole.”

“That’s a bold assumption.”

“Aww,” he mocks. “You must think I’m an idiot.”

“Hardly.”

“You don’t think I know?”

“Know what?”

He says it so plainly, so expressionless. “That you love her.”

Eren’s eyes flicker, wincing at the words. Contrasting his reaction, Jean is still blank, still expressionless. 

He says, “You’re in love with my wife.”

Eren shakes his head, his hands clenching. “She’s not your wife.”

“She soon will be.” Jean laughs. His demeanor shifts suddenly. Grinning, patting a hand on Eren’s back, he says, “Tell me, Eren. How do you live with yourself? How do you cope with knowing it’s me she goes to bed with at night? That it’s me she says she loves? How do you handle it?”

Eren is very, very quiet. He doesn’t respond. He rips his eyes away from him and stares straight ahead. The elevator feels tight, fuzzy.

And why haven’t the doors opened by now?

Jean continues. His serpent hiss is cunning. “You were there first. I know it. You’ve kissed her. You’ve fucked her. And you expect me to be okay with you meddling around in her life.”

Eren scoffs in disbelief. He focuses his eyes enough to take in the man beside him. “I hate to remind you, but Mikasa’s chosen this herself.”

Another smile. “Has she, though? Are you sure you’re not just being selfish?” Jean fixes his tie, straightens his sleek, stupid jacket. “What makes you think that what you’re doing is right?”

Eren’s voice is lost somewhere in his throat. He barely manages to whisper, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

This time, there’s no smile. This time, Jean grows serious. 

“Really, Eren? You expect me to believe she just magically landed a role in this play? That she just randomly decided to dance again? That she stays out until the middle of the night with  _ your  _ friends without  _ you _ having anything to do with it?”

Eren laughs. It’s a cruel sound, and it makes Jean angrier. “I don’t see why her being happier has to upset you.”

“Because she’s lying to me. Lying to me because of you.”

“That’s your problem, not mine.”

“And perhaps you’re right about that. I can’t argue with you there. But, unlike you, I can’t live knowing the woman I love is with another man. You think I can live peacefully knowing she loved you first? I think part of you hopes that she still does. Am I wrong?”

“No.” Eren’s surprised by his own honesty. “No, you’re not.”

“Of course not,” the man smiles. “Eren, you’re a good guy. I don’t hate you. But you’re not allowed to see Mikasa anymore.”

He snorts. “Is that right?”

“I think something both you and I have in common is that we want what’s best for her, and you’re not that.”

“How so?”

“Let me break it down for you: You. Will not. See her. Anymore.”

“And what makes you think I won’t?”

“Well, what if she hates you?”

Eren grins. “She doesn’t.”

“You sound awfully confident about that. You forget that I’m the one she’s engaged to.” Jean fixes his tie again, checks his wristwatch, and without even looking at him, says, “What if I told her a little something?”

“What?”

“That you’re sick.”

Eren’s stomach drops. It physically hurts him.

He gapes at Jean, gasping, “How did—?“

“That you’ve kept the truth from her all this time,” he continues. “That you planned for her to be in this play and to be with your friends and in your life because you can’t let her go?”

“You can’t do that!”

“I can’t? And what if I told her that you’ve done all of this out of pity? Out of love? You really think she’ll stay with you if she knows you love her? That’s fucking pathetic. She’ll run faster than she ever did the first time she left you.”

A thud.

It takes Eren a few seconds to realize the sound came from Jean’s head hitting the mirrored wall. From the reflection, he can see himself. See his own fist drawn up in the air, ready to blow. His other hand’s coiled in the lapels of Jean’s shirt. 

Jean laughs breathlessly, shaking his head as if it would numb the pain in his skull. “You should do it,” he grunts. “Do it,” he dares him. “Hit me. Do me a favor and make her hate you for me. Hit me.”

Eren’s fist trembles in the air. He grits his teeth, fighting every atom in his body not to pummel Jean right in his perfect fucking teeth. But then something occurs to him. 

He’s right.

What makes him think he’s not hurting Mikasa?

“No?” Jean laughs again, wheezing a bit. “Then let me go. Either way, you lose, Eren.”

Blind with anger, Eren punches the wall by his head. Jean flinches heavily, the mirror cracking, glass splitting Eren’s knuckles open.

“Fuck you,” he hisses, tiny balls of spit landing on Jean’s shocked face.

Then the doors slide open, and Eren hides his bloody fist in his coat and walks away.

**—o—**

By the time Mikasa makes it home, her legs and hands are practically frozen numb. She’d waited for Eren for nearly  _ two _ hours. Curse him, she thinks. He’s not even responding to her text messages or phone calls. But her anger quickly subsides to worry. Is he okay? Did something happen? Or did he simply stand her up?

“Curse him,” she says aloud.

Because she’s not supposed to be waiting for him anyway. Not when her fiancé is home, waiting. Not when her cat needs to be fed. Not when she has another performance tomorrow.

Curse him.

Slinking out of her clothes, Mikasa jumps into the shower. About ten minutes in, after countless scenarios play out in her mind, she comes to the conclusion that Eren simply forgot. He was in a hurry when he told her to meet him, anyway. Maybe he just got caught up with something. Tomorrow, she will find him and ask.

Or should she give him the cold shoulder?

Would it be desperate on her part if she seeks him out? Should she just play cavalier and pretend she never even made it to the park anyway? Because then perhaps she won’t seem as needy, right? Yeah. Okay.

Her thoughts are cut short when a faint breeze wafts into the bathroom, indicating that the door has been opened. She hears footsteps, and before he’s even shedding his clothes and making his way into the shower, she knows it’s Jean.

“Hey,” he whispers when he’s behind her. 

Turning to face him, Mikasa smiles. “Hi.”

“You were amazing tonight,” he says, kissing her forehead. “I can’t believe you’re mine.”

“Well, believe it,” she murmurs, wrapping her arms around his neck. She feels his hands slide down her back and anchor to her rear, hears him hum happily.

“Have I ever told you I love the little mole on your butt?”

Mikasa snickers. “That’s random.”

“Well, I do.” His fingers draw little circles where the mole is, and after a moment of him seemingly submerged in thought, he asks her, “Where were you tonight?”

Mikasa hides her face into the crook of his neck, letting the water wash over their bodies. “I was out.”

“Where?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You’re lying to me.”

Shocked, she draws back, her arms falling limply from his neck. “What?” His expression is unreadable, an emotion she can’t recognize etched all over his face. For a moment, he’s a stranger. But then he comes back. Her same old tender Jean, he comes back.

“Nothing,” he smiles faintly, smoothing a wet lock of hair away from her face. “I have to tell you something.”

“What?”

“Eren…”

Mikasa tenses at his name. Whether Jean notices or not, she does not know. 

She breathes, “What about him?”

It takes Jean a moment to speak again. When he does, Mikasa notices that his voice falters, gives up somehow. “Nothing.”

“What?” she presses on. “Tell me.”

There’s nothing. Just silence. The water runs down their stagnant bodies, a whitenoise that nearly drowns out his response.

“I spoke to him after the play.”

Mikasa blinks. She can feel her heart pounding inside her ribcage. “And?”

“And…” Jean says, tracing the skin between her breasts with his fingertips. “He’s happy you’re happy.”

She hums, her mind drifting to the previous few hours. Because she’s upset that Eren didn’t show up, worried as to why, and confused by Jean’s sudden comment. A flicker of a thought suggests he has something to do with him not showing up, but she quickly dismisses it. Jean would never.

Kissing him on the lips, Mikasa asks her fiancé, “Are you happy I’m happy?”

Smiling against her mouth, he replies, “I am.”

“Well, good.”

“Let’s get married.”

Mikasa laughs. “We are.”

“No, I mean, now.”

Her eyebrows knit together with a frown. “What do you mean now?”

“Next month. Through court, let’s just do it.”

“Jean…”

“You don’t want to?”

“It’s not that, it’s just…” Eren. It’s just Eren. It’s just that he’s all she can think of and her addled mind betrays her, flashes images and memories of the man she missed tonight, the one she misses now. Shaking her head as if the gesture alone could steady her thoughts, she says, “Can we talk about this later?”

Jean nods. “Ah,” and he goes to leave.

Mikasa stops him with a hand at his wrist. “No, Jean, wait.” 

He turns. Looks at her. 

“Let’s do it,” she whispers. “Let’s do it, then.”

“Yeah?”

“Of course.”

“Perfect.” Jean’s grin is tainted with a hint of mischief. His hair is wet and clinging to his forehead. Mikasa smooths it back over his head, and then he says, “We can start the honeymoon now.”

“What do you—? Oh.”

They laugh.

And it’s normal, so normal, when the hands she feels roaming through her body don’t belong to the man before her, but to the one in her mind. His face is painted over the walls of her heart, and it vibrates behind her eyelids, between the divide of skin and bone so that all she sees and feels is this absent ghost around her, inside her. It’s such a practiced litany when her lips betray her, utter a name that does not belong to the one searing on her tongue, burning to break free. 

Curse him, she thinks. Curse him.

**—o—**

The last thing he ever wanted was to hurt her. But he has. He has.

Jean was right. 

Eren sees her everywhere and anywhere. In every sleep. Every blink. Every thought. Every word that goes fathomed but unspoken.

Jean was right.

There is something about loving people that has to be shared. Eren knows how Mikasa loves, how she moves, how she kisses when she means it and what she’s like when she’s sleepy, when she’s happy, when she’s angry, when she feels everything but stifles it all into herself so that one has to dig to find her. He knows the way she says things, the voice she uses to say I love you’s and I want you’s and the fatality of her hands when they rip a person open, how she shreds all there is to a man so that she leaves them raw. 

He knows exactly what Jean has. He knows what he holds in his hands, what he feels and smells. What he tastes. What he makes love to. What he gets from her if he tries. And there’s no pain like knowing exactly what another person has because you’ve had it once yourself.

Eren can’t go on sharing her. Not like this. And not when it hurts her.

It hurts all of them.

So he chooses to love her the best way he knows how, chooses to revert back to their old ways, the right ways. Back to strangers. And he wonders what his life would be had he never ran into her that night—had he never clashed against her presence and had her vortexing back into his life. What if he’d left his home a second later? Taken a different route to his destination? Changed a single nuance in his trajectory so that he’d missed her that night? What if he’d done all of that?

Would he still be here today? 

Would he still have found the stubbornness to keep a heartbeat inside of him? 

She’s changed everything. She’s changed everything.

Now, Eren must learn to unbecome, reverse himself to her absence again, the him he was before she reintroduced him to new parts of himself. But it’s so fucking stupid to even try to do that. There’s no erasing what is happened. What is done. What is permanent now.

Letting go of someone doesn’t only happen once. He lets go of her a thousand times. 

When he sees her favorite color, hears her favorite songs, smells chocolate or perfume or hears people walk in heeled boots and he catches the faint taps of approaching footsteps—he lets her go. Again, again, again, again, he lets her go. And each time, she takes a piece of him with her.

He tears her from his home and friends and breathing space. Because maybe loving people right means being a stranger to them. So he hopes, and he knows, that she’ll be able to forget him. Because unlike him, Mikasa doesn’t need him. She’s never needed him the way he’s needed her. She’s had a life for years without him.

It can be that way again. And it has to be.

But the heart is a stubborn thing. Here and there, he catches himself falling, catches himself only steps away from where he knows she’ll be. He rewires, recenters, and goes the opposite direction. How does one stop needing breath to live? How does one ever stop loving Mikasa Ackerman? 

“I love her,” he tells his friends. And they all watch him with pity. And they all say they know. And they all agree to help him once more. To get rid of her, and in turn, get rid of himself.

**—o—**

What the hell is going on with everyone?

First, it was Eren. 

Then, Hitch. Then, Sasha. Then, Ymir and even Historia are flaking out on their plans. One by one, they each seemingly abandon her, steering their gazes away when hers cling to them. And why? What is wrong? What did she ever do to them?

An old sense of isolation settles in when, during one of her last performances, her eyes searched the crowd to find—yet again—no trace of Eren. 

No trace of anybody. 

And when she’d gone to his apartment that night, her fists rapped on a silent door. Nobody answered. And her world went still, extinguished itself to silence. And that perplexed her. She asked a question she’s been asking a lot lately. 

Why?

Why does the vibrancy in her life suddenly reduce itself to nothing? She’s astonished at the sudden shift within her, wondering what had been so different these past few months that she’d been so filled. At this question, she comes out without an answer each and every time. It’s not long before Mikasa comes back to her old self. The self that existed without Eren.

She’s a dull, monotonous routine. Wake up, eat, perform, sleep. Wake up, eat, perform, sleep. Not once does she get to see her friends to invite them to her wedding, to tell them about her new plans, her new life, her sooner-to-be husband. She keeps asking. What has happened? What is happening?

And why?

It’s on the last day of performances, before the show, when she’s clad in nothing but a leotard, a shrugger, leggings, and her coat, that she escapes one last time to find him. 

The heart is a stubborn, stubborn thing.

It’s right around noon that same day when she stumbles into Annie.

“Hey,” she drones, startling her.

Mikasa gasps, lifting her gaze to find the source of the voice. She knows it’s Annie, but doesn’t fully gauge her presence until her eyes capture the entirety of her. They’re in Sasha’s café, and Mikasa had only been there for a couple of minutes. She’d gone there in a state of desperation, seeking people from the other side of ignored texts and fruitless phone calls.

“Annie,” she whispers, rising to her feet. Her thighs tap the edge of the table.

“Sit,” Annie tells her, steely eyes set on her face. Her look is severe, and Mikasa can’t quite place her finger on it. There’s something different hardening her today. 

Doing as she says, she lowers herself back onto her chair as Annie takes the one across from her. Her wrist brace is gone, but her right eye is slightly bruised. Annie’s always fighting. Mikasa wonders: Against what?

She’s just like Eren.

They sit in silence for a moment, Mikasa studying the quiet presence before her, Annie doing the same—until finally the latter opens her mouth and says, “I came here because I knew you’d be here. Plus, you’re still sharing your location with all of us, so it wasn’t hard to find you.”

Mikasa’s slow to speak. Unsure of what to say, she swallows. Then asks, “Why?”

Annie is expressionless now. She clasps her hands together on the table. “You’ve been trying to contact Eren and the rest. And I won’t lie to you, they’ve been avoiding you.”

“I know. Do you know why?” Mikasa is surprised by the eagerness in her own voice. Unusually vulnerable, laying herself out all for Annie to see, she says, “All I want to know is why. What did I ever do to them?”

Annie shakes her head. “Nothing.”

“Then why—?”

“Eren is not who you think he is right now.”

Silence.

Mikasa’s the one to shake her head now. “I’m sorry?”

“I know you’ve known him all your life,” Annie belabors. “But I think what he’s done to you so far isn’t fair.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s been…”

“What?”

She sighs. “I want you to know that the only reason I am telling you any of this is because I owe him.”

“Tell me.”

Her hands unravel between them, fingers tapping on the table for a couple of beats. It’s a nervous habit, Mikasa supposes. Ceasing her tapping, Annie says, “I think it’s been clear from the beginning that you and I aren’t exactly friends, so don’t take this as me being kind to you.”

Mikasa nods once, matching Annie’s cool expression. “Understood.”

She begins: “Eren’s… He’s got things he isn’t telling you.”

“Like what?”

“Most of that’s for him to say, but I just don’t agree with what he’s done to you so far.”

“What has he done?”

“Everything.”

“Everything?”

“He got you a spot in this play, got you close to his friends. Got you happy again.”

Mikasa’s mouth falls open, uttering a breathless, “What?”

“Your spot in this play, your new friends, your life recently—it’s all been him.” 

“How do you know?”

Annie sighs. It’s a long, deflated one. A tired one. Then she says, “When I met Eren, I was homeless. My father kicked me out after beating me. Eren took me in and I lived with him. He beat the shit out of my dad when he found out what he did to me. I hated him for it, to be honest. But I realized why I hated him—it was because he had the courage to do what I couldn’t do myself. He saved my life.”

Mikasa is quiet. She studies the presence before her, watches the way Annie sighs again, clears her throat.

“When you came back into Eren’s life, everything changed,” she says. “He changed. It was odd to see him so alive, none of us had ever seen him like that before. He asked us to partake in certain things to make sure you’re alright. We all agreed, because… Well, because we love him. We’re all scared shitless that someday, he’ll hurt himself so bad there won’t be any coming back from it. I think in all our years of friendship, I’ve worried for him more than anything else. But I’m starting to realize there’s nothing I can do to keep him safe, to repay what he did for me. So… maybe, this is how I do it. He’s going to hate me for this, but I’m alright with that. To be honest, I don’t give a shit how he feels anymore. This has to stop, because in the end, the one that’s suffering most here is Eren.”

Mikasa shakes her head. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m not his girlfriend,” Annie deadpans. There’s not an ounce in her expression that shifts at all. 

Mikasa’s face opens at the knowledge, but she’s cut off before her lips can part to speak. 

“It’s not even remotely close to that,” Annie continues. “Eren’s family. And I have a feeling that he’s the same for you—or that he once was, anyway. Whatever screwed up past you guys have is killing him. I know it’s wrong of me to be speaking for him, but he’s too fucking dense to do this himself. He nearly lost his hand in an accident, did you know that? The scar on his palm? It’s a miracle he can move any of his fingers. He’s got more on his chest and other parts of his body, and you don’t get that shit from martial arts or whatever. You get that from something very, very terrible. I can’t even imagine what he’s been through. To be honest, I don’t want to know.”

Annie clears her throat, and Mikasa gapes at what looks like the beginnings of tears burgeoning over her eyes. Something in her is so vulnerable now, and she seems so fragile. So young. A child that never got to grow up in the way she was supposed to, one that had to harden from the very start.

_ She's just like Eren. _

“And you were there, weren’t you?” she whispers, bright blue eyes spilling. She stops her tears immediately, pressing her wrists to her eyes to catch them before they dare roll down her cheeks. Taking in a breath, she persists. “That’s the scar on your cheek, right? Eren told me once that I remind him of someone he loved a very long time ago. It’s my eyes and hair or something like that. And you know who I’m talking about, don’t you? Mikasa, you’re the only one that can take him out of this hell hole he’s pushed himself into. And I’m practically begging you: Please do. Please help him.”

“Annie…” 

“God,” she scoffs suddenly, wiping her eyes with the sleeves of her hoodie. “I think this is the most I’ve talked in my entire fucking life.” 

Mikasa takes in a breath. There’s a lump in her throat. Speechless, she scrambles for what to say. What to do. And Annie’s still crying. And now, Mikasa feels like she will, too.

“Annie, I’m—”

“I know Eren better than anyone,” she interrupts. “He did all of those good deeds because he wants you to be happy. It’s kind of shitty, but that’s how he is. He’s just good. Too good of a damn person.”

“So everyone became my friend out of pity?” Mikasa says. “I got the role because of his connections? That’s it?”

“Yes.” Annie smiles. Her version of a smile is a small one, one that hardly seems to be sincere. “I don’t agree with anything he’s done. I think you should know the truth.”

“I need to find him,” Mikasa breathes suddenly, gathering her things.

Annie nods curtly. “You do.”

“Where can I find him?”

“He’s home now,” she shrugs. “I know that much.”

“I have to go.”

And that’s it. It’s that simple. With that, Mikasa jumps to her feet, slips her coat on, and turns to leave. But before departing, she stops, says, “Hey.”

“What?”

“Thank you.”

And Annie doesn’t answer, she just nods. She just nods.

**—o—**

_ Bang, bang, bang! _

“Eren?”

_ Bang, bang, bang! _

“Eren!”

Her fists hammer the door of his apartment building for what feels like a long time. She presses the buzzers by the frame, all to no avail. Nobody answers. There’s nothing but the banging of her fists upon the door.

She bangs again.

_ Bang, bang, bang! _

Nothing.

“Screw it,” Mikasa huffs, making her way around the building. She finds Hitch’s apartment window, a ladder leading up to her small balcony. And without a thought, she jumps, clasps her hands on the bottom handle, and climbs up.

It all happens so quickly. In a trance, the foggy spectacle of her actions blurring before her, she barely registers landing on the balcony, her hands prying the window open. She crawls inside only to underestimate her footing and tumble into Hitch’s apartment with a loud crash.

“Ow,” she breathes, clutching her knee. It hurts. But before she can gauge the damage, contemplate just what the hell she thinks she’s doing, Hitch is scrambling from the kitchen to her aid.

“Mikasa!” she shouts. “What in the world—?”

“I need to see Eren,” she pants, struggling to her feet. Her leggings are torn now, her hair all over her face. She looks like a mess. She knows this, and yet has the audacity to proclaim, “I need you to show me to him. Now.”

“Are you insane!?” Hitch exclaims, but before she can finish her squawking, Mikasa is rushing through her apartment to the front door.

“I know you’ve all been ignoring me,” she says, stopping to turn and face Hitch before leaving. “But I will not go down without a fight.”

“Mikasa, stop!”

She does. “Why?”

“Calm down! Are you fucking crazy? What are you even doing? Give Eren his space!”

“No.”

“Mikasa!”

The door slams shut behind her. With adrenaline pumping all the way up to her ears, she can hear her own heartbeat, how it matches the pounds she unleashes on Eren’s door.

It is not long before he answers.

Seeing him before her again is a shock. He looks smaller, like time has wrung life out of him. Mikasa wonders when she last saw him, how long ago it was that he seems to have changed this much. His eyes are their old vibrant selves when they glow at her presence, searching her face to whisper, “Mikasa?”

“Yes,” she pants, steadying her heaving chest. “I need to speak with you.”

“I can’t right now.”

“You don’t think I know what you’re doing? Let me in.”

“No.”

“Eren, I—”

“You’re bleeding.”

Mikasa freezes. She blinks rapidly, not knowing where to even look. “What?”

“What have you done?” He scowls down at her leg. “You’re bleeding!”

Dumbly, she gazes down at her knee to find a rivulet of crimson staining the gaping tear in her leggings. “Oh.”

Eren seems visibly upset when he grasps her hand and pulls her into his apartment. The smell of his place bombards her, sucks her back into a sharp, familiar place. He leads her to the couch, orders her to sit, then disappears into the kitchen.

As she waits, the depth of her stupidity finally hits her. Just what in the world does she think she’s doing? She’d been led here in a state of panic, and now all that spurred her on is thwarted, leaving behind only this shaking, naked feeling.

What is happening to her?

Before she can even think of saying anything, Eren appears with a first-aid kit in his hands. He crouches down in front of her and, without a word of warning, tears her leggings open. It rips loudly, exposing the skin of her upper leg. Mikasa gasps, but he holds her still. His fingers dent her bare flesh, keeping her in place as he presses a cloth doused in antibacterial solution to her wound.

It stings. Mikasa hisses, parting her lips to speak but Eren’s tightening grip on her thigh silences her. She’s never seen him like this. He seems so furious at her, glaring at her knee as he cleans and treats it. She studies the lines of his face, the corners. And she sees a stranger. 

When he’s done, her knee is wrapped in white gauze, held tight so that she can hardly move it. Despite his strong hold on her, he is rather gentle when he releases her. She sees the way his hand is large enough to hold the entirety of her thigh, how small she seems compared to him. There are scabs on his knuckles, and she doesn’t remember them being there before. They’re almost raw, just now healing. She thinks to ask him what happened, but instead, she clears her throat. She thanks him.

Eren sighs.

“You’ve done something very stupid,” he tells her, his voice only a fraction of what it had been before. He doesn’t seem angry anymore. Really, he just looks sad. 

“I needed to see you,” is all Mikasa can think to say. He lifts his eyes from the floor to her face, studying her for a quiet moment.

Mikasa feels herself breathing. She can smell him, smell ancient homey Eren, and the scent completely contradicts his current state. He shakes his head, breaking their trance, and rises to his feet, walking away from her.

“I can’t see you anymore,” he says.

“Why?”

“I just can’t.”

“I don’t understand,” she says, trying to get up on her feet but merely tripping into the couch further. “You come into my life, you change everything, and you expect me to be okay with it? With you just walking away?”

Eren’s gaze is deep and blue, pouring over her. “Why are you fighting this so much? Just let it go, Mikasa. Let me go.”

She answers sternly. “No.”

Eren shakes his head, scoffing. “God, you’re so stubborn.”

“I just need to know. What’s given you the right to do what you’ve done?”

“Done what?”

“Why did you make your friends befriend me? Why did you get Historia to let me be in this play? I know it’s all been you, Eren. Or hasn’t it?”

He pauses, quiet for a moment. His lips part but say nothing. All they release is a breath.

And then, “It’s been me.”

Mikasa’s voice is a whisper. “How dare you?”

“Are you serious?” Eren laughs. “Do you have any idea how sad you were when I first ran into you? I’d never seen you so depressed in my life.”

“I’m not some helpless little thing for you to build and fix, Eren.”

His eyes are heavy on her face. “No, you’re not.”

“Then why did you do it?” She can feel herself growing hot. Growing angry. “Do you think I enjoy being pitied like that? I could’ve done all of this on my own.”

“Really, Mikasa? Then why didn’t you?”

She groans softly, struggling to her feet. Eren moves to help her, his demeanor breaking for a fraction of a second. But then she stands, and his defensive stance returns to him.

“You can’t just go around fixing people, Eren,” she huffs, crossing the living room to stand before him now. “That’s not how it works.”

Cruelly, he smiles down at her. “How does it work, then? Hmm? You’re telling me you’d rather be engaged to some rich guy that doesn’t give you the time of day and call that a life? That’s fucking sad, Mikasa.”

“Don’t curse at me.”

“Well, fuck that.”

“Eren.”

“Fuck that! And fuck him!”

“That’s enough!”

He says, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I forgot I need to be gentle around you now. Gentle and sweet because poor fragile Mikasa can’t stand the heat.”

“Because you’re any better?” she scoffs, her cheeks tinted red with rage. “How do you think I feel knowing my life has been constructed by you? You can’t just lie to someone like that. Whatever hero complex you have, I don’t wish to be at the other end of it.”

“I helped you!”

“You lied!”

“Oh, my fucking God.”

“Why, Eren? Why did you do it?”

He holds an arm up to the door. “Go.”

“Why?”

“Just go!”

“Why did you lie?” she persists, her voice cracking. “Why did you do it? Stop walking away from me, Eren. Look at me! It’s the least you can do. Tell me! Goddammit, tell me why!”

Everything stops. 

Everything.

Because he kisses her.

Her gasp is lost between them when their lips crash together. It’s sudden and it’s hot and she freezes over for the millisecond his mouth collides with hers. But before she can fully register the sudden invasion, it’s gone.

Eren breaks away, gripping her stunned shoulders. “That’s why,” he rasps, shaking her vigorously. Her head bobbles like a doll’s. “Do you understand? That’s why.”

Speechless, Mikasa swells in her astonishment, a shaky inhale filling her throat. She’s shaking in his hands and Eren thinks to say something but—

He gasps, the air pushed out of him. 

Before he can process it, his back’s met the wall behind him with a solid knock. And he’s too shocked to react, hating the way he instinctively fights her force against him. 

Mikasa blanches at her fists in his shirt, devastated by what she’s done to him.

“I’m—” Her gaze floods with tears, ripping from his face to disappear into a pained expression. Eren can feel her fists trembling on his chest, and she’s breathing just as hard as him. He looks down at her, panting softly through parted lips, trying to catch his breath. Trying to. His neck tilts back to press his skull to the wall. All in defeat. All in full surrender. 

And that’s when it happens.

He releases her wrists.

Holds her cheek.

Says her name.

Makes her look at him. 

What had been the start of a sentence is snuffed out of his mouth when she yanks him into her. Her lips tumble into his so clumsily and fervidly that their teeth clack. A second, two, then she pulls back to gasp and gape at what has happened, his expression screaming not anger, but vulnerability and surprise. And before a single breath can crawl back into her, Eren grabs her face with both his hands and pulls her to him. Like a tidal wave crashing to the shore, his lips on hers bring about destruction.

Mikasa doesn’t realize that she’s up on her tippy toes, that her arms have thrown themselves around his neck. Her tears burn on her cheeks, his thumbs sizzling in their moisture before slipping to the back of her head—then he’s using all his fingers to tug a gasp out of her, pulling on her hair with her lower lip between his teeth. 

Longing doesn’t describe it. 

She can’t even breathe. 

When her tongue slips into his mouth and he welcomes the intruder, sliding his hands along the slope of her back all the way down to her ass, they contract, and he gropes her, and her moan is lost between them, cast off into his mouth. Her fingers find his face, his shoulders, his arms. She’s too small against him, too faint. And just when she thinks she’s falling, his palms slip to the backs of her thighs and hoist her up.

On cue, she wraps her legs around his waist and he spins with the load of her in his hands. Her back meets the wall with a thump, and they’re a flurry of breaths and hands that pull and grip at flesh, skin, clothing. Soon enough, they’re melting, melting, down until they’re nothing but liquid pooling on the floor in a puddle of broken, breathless hunger.

Gasping, Mikasa hurries to rip the scarf off her neck and peel the shrugger down her arms while Eren helps her. His teeth nip her throat, her shoulder, pulling down the straps of her leotard so that she’s bare and he hurts her better, hurts her more. Her fingers curl into his shirt. Off. Off. She needs it off of him. Closer. God, she needs him closer. His bare chest is warm in her hands, against the tops of her breasts. He wrestles his shirt off his neck and Mikasa moans at the sight of him, tracing the lines of his scars, his muscles. And then he finds her lips again, starved, groaning when she parts her legs farther and he rucks into her, grinding his arousal against her core.

She gasps.

Breaks.

Splintering in his palms, her nails cut into his back to try to rip him open. He grimaces and hisses in pain. And this spurs her; spurs him on. He drags a hand down between them in retaliation, gripping her throat, baring her breast—and she feels her nipple vanish into the heat of his mouth, the harsh, sudden sting of him sucking. Her neck cranes to free a breathy cry, prompting their motions to grow feverish, to singe and scorch and tear apart. She takes his hand to guide it past her belly and press it flush between her legs, tasting his sigh when he feels her through her clothes. Her lips part to speak but then he’s gone, torn away from her. Too far.

His hands scurry down to the front of his jeans, fumbling to unbutton and unzip them. And then in an instant, he’s back on her again. Everywhere, everywhere. Marking her neck, slipping his fingers through the tear in her leggings to grip the bare skin of her leg. Stronger, storming, his hips roll into her again, so raw and dense with want that she can’t control her noises.

“Eren,” she says his name, declares it. His breath is hot along her jawline, a hand in her hair, tugging back so that she arches, stretches wider. Her eyes roll back and she shivers, helpless underneath him, his weight, his force, so willing to drown in his downpour. It’s when her eyes glaze over and she slides a hand down the front of his jeans, halfway into his briefs that he rushes to stop her.

“Wait,” he pants.

A pause.

Mikasa, jolting back into her body.

“Wait, wait,” Eren whispers, gripping her wrist so firmly that it hurts. “No,” he tells her. “No, Mikasa, we can’t.”

She stops.

She breathes. 

She realizes what has happened.

She petrifies, the devastation of what just occurred washing over her in one overwhelming swoop. Inch by inch, her body grows frigid, the heat that had just submerged her fizzling out. She stares blankly at the ceiling, her hair spilled around her head on the floor in a wreath of blotted ink.

Eren gasps.

“What have we done?” he asks himself. Asks her.

What have they done?

“Fuck.” He recoils from her like a flake of bark in the fire, sitting back with his face in his hands. Mikasa reacts viscerally to the sudden disconnect, jumping slightly in her skin. 

Her eyes stare straight ahead, registering nothing but her own labored breathing, the way she feels herself go numb until her body is utterly translucent. Then she sits, gathers herself, fixes the straps of her leotard back over her shoulders.

She doesn’t look at him.

She doesn’t spare Eren a single glance or word as she collects her things, rises, and leaves him.

And as the door falls shut, Eren lifts his head, shamefully, to try to find her. But she’s gone and his shirt’s still thrown somewhere near him on the floor and his fist bleeds where they’d ripped a scab open and he can’t look anymore, he hides his face in his hands again, he just can't look and he knows that he has truly, truly hurt her now.

No, not that.

Killed her.

And he hates himself. He hates himself.

He hates.

—o—

Mikasa shivers, and she doesn’t feel the cold.

There’s no coat on her, no shrugger, nothing to keep her from the iciness of wind and snow. And she doesn’t feel the cold.

She walks along the sidewalk, crushing mush and ice with every step; her hair parting open at her shoulders, her fringe over her face, a tremble so strong it quakes through the guilt, the filth, the dirtiness that is all of her. And she doesn’t feel the cold.

She makes it home, lips blue and cheeks chilled to an icy flush that mimics the same hue dotting her neck and chest and breast that blooms the proof of her humiliation. And she doesn’t feel the cold.

She’s wrenching the clothes off her body the second she’s made it through the door, exposing all the layers of her that teem with a betrayal so vile it penetrates into the soul, rotting it to rancid, contaminated waste. She realizes she’s hyperventilating. She can’t breathe.

And she doesn’t feel the cold.

In the shower, she scrapes herself raw—and even then she can’t wash away the remnants of him. He’s still on her, in her, everywhere at once. And she’s still shivering. And flashbacks shoot through her mind, flashes of him, her, what they did, how they broke and tore and tainted one another. She hears it, sees it. What they’ve done. What she is.

Adulterer.

Cheater.

_ Slut. _

“I’m sorry,” she breathes into the steam of her shower. 

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

I’m sorry for existing.

I’m sorry for being me.

I’m so sorry.

And when she’s in bed and Jean turns in his sleep to throw an arm around her, she vows to never—never, never, never—see Eren or his friends again.

Curse him, she thinks, as tears pool in her eyes but dry up before spilling.

_ Curse him. _

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA 
> 
> merry christmas,  
> nati


	28. Love's Tragic Choices

Senior year of Eren’s high school education was when Grisha Jaeger had enough. 

Had enough of staring into his son’s eyes and seeing Carla. Of hearing his laughter and hearing her voice. Of seeing his face and catching glimpses of what no longer lived in his world. The further along the years rolled by, the older his son got, the more Grisha drifted away from him and from himself. It was the alcohol and the women and whatever else poisoned his soul that turned him into smoke and made him float and drift until he vanished.

Grisha Jaeger vanished.

He vanished from his son’s life and left him behind with nothing but a home nearing foreclosure, and distant relatives that offered money and solace but Eren wanted neither of those things. He was eighteen, so he was old enough to take care of himself in every way deemed feasible. Old enough not to cry when the third day came and Daddy was still gone. And he wondered. Wondered why. Wondered what he did to cause this. Was it his fights in school? His suspensions? That he didn’t want to go to college? The more Eren thought about it, the more sense it made. People always leave. People are designed to leave him. Everyone, everyone leaves.

He could’ve called him up. He could’ve done anything, and part of him knew that if he reached out far enough, he’d find his father. But it was Grisha who chose to leave—so Eren decided to leave as well before his father could regret it and come back blubbering and apologizing the way he always did. Nobody could leave Eren again if he left them first.

So he let Dad disappear.

Let the house disappear.

Let it all disappear. 

“It’s not your fault,” Mikasa told him one morning, when his fists coiled in the way they were accustomed to doing. Her voice was real, sharp enough to cut into him and carve her words so that she made sure he would not forget: It’s not your fault, it’s not your fault, it’s not your fault, she kept telling him. But how could she say that? Believe that? When it was a lie?

Eren was always so vulnerable, and this predicament left him in a state no different. He wore everything outside of him, bore himself from the inside out so that everything hurt more than it should. And his girlfriend caught his tears once they fell from his eyes, down his cheeks, his chin, onto the floor. Because his house was no longer a home—and Grisha leaving made sure to cement that fact and remind him. It was an empty box. A carcass that held echoes and reverberated the laughter of a mother, a father, a little boy. The phantoms of a family that could be. That should be.

Mikasa kissed the moisture on his cheeks, the raw salt of him, and she said, “Come live with me. Mama and Papa are working things out. They might call off the divorce.”

“No.” Because Eren was a wrecker. The tear in things that made them rip apart. “If I live with you, I’ll ruin your family too.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Look at me,” he said. “I ruined mine.”

And all Mikasa could do was hold him. Just hold him. And as she did, Eren buried his nose into her skin, her hair, smelled that sweetness of hers and held her tight into his body and begged her, “Mikasa. Please. Never leave me.”

“I promise,” the girl whispered, not even pausing for breath. “I’ll never leave you, Eren.”

**—o—**

Armin loved the beach.

Even while it was cold out, he loved fawning over all its mysteries and depths. The ocean held stories. It had life. A lover. And he knew, because he saw the way it toiled to break away from the shore, always coming back to caress it, only to retrieve with whispered promises of its return. 

He loved it. He loved the way the sun dominated the waves, conjuring crystalline speckles on the water’s surface, little diamonds that scattered when they broke over the sand. He was contemplating its beauty on the day that he declared, “I’m getting surgery.”

Eren and Mikasa looked at him. Their expressions were ambiguous, scarves and jackets fluttering in the chilled breeze. Their noses were pink, eyes widened with something he couldn’t place. But Armin continued.

“They think they can take out my tumor. Get my hearing back.”

“But it’s in your ear,” Mikasa said, frowning in the way she always did when she addressed what they all knew was quickly killing him. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“It is.”

“Then why go through with it?” Eren was the one to ask. They were walking along the sand, but came to a full stop once Armin gave his answer.

“Because,” he started. He closed his eyes, breathed the saline in the air, and then deep blue sea marbles slid open again, read the lips of his friends—their love, their worry, and replied, “I’ve got nothing to lose at this point.”

Mikasa’s lips parted only to stay like that. Eren’s were pursed shut, forming a steady line that did not waver. 

“They only gave me months to live at this point,” Armin said, the breeze throwing his hair over his eyes. Mikasa was quick to push it back away from his face. She took off her winter hat to slip it over his head and keep him warm. She always did that. Help. “So why not just…” he continued after thanking her. “Why not just do it?” 

“But what if you don’t survive?” Mikasa’s eyes were squinted, matching Eren’s own fixed look. “This surgery sounds very dangerous.”

Armin smiled again. “More dangerous than cancer?”

Silence.

“I didn’t think so.”

Then, he cast his gaze to the sea, prompting Eren and Mikasa’s to follow. His cheeks were soft and rosy, a blush that reached all the way to the button tip of his nose. And He didn’t catch Eren’s words when they left his mouth, not until he grabbed his coat sleeve, seizing his attention.

“Armin.” He could almost hear his voice, imagine it. Taut and stern, the way it always was when he was worried about him. He always did that. Worry. “When’s the surgery?”

“In a month.”

“Aren’t you scared?”

“Not really, no.”

“Well, then.” Eren sighed, and Armin knew that it was long and deep by the way his chest sunk. It wasn’t often that Eren gave in without argument when it came to things he didn’t like. But his eyes dimmed slightly, a patience he didn’t often display softening his features. He gave another sigh, and then he said, “Fine. But we’re going with you.”

Armin nodded. And they started walking again.

I’m worried, he didn’t hear Mikasa say.

Don’t be, he missed out on Eren’s response.

Because he’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. You’ll see.

**—o—**

Love is a very complicated thing. It comes with lots of parts and moving pieces. 

It’s not a feeling, Mama told her. It’s a choice. And Mikasa thought of her own feelings for Eren, for Armin. They were feelings, surely. Were they not? They were feelings because she felt them without having to decide, without intending or calculating or trying. Could a mere choice do that? No. Love was more. Bigger than that.

But Mama was adamant. Love was far more complicated. Because when feelings fade, what’s left? Choices, she told her. Choices. And she was choosing to give Papa a second chance. Not to forget he ever cheated on her, but to forgive him. That was her choice. That was her way of loving him. Forgiveness.

So Mama chose to bring Papa to Mikasa’s final dance recital that winter.

This was it. This was the dance before she went off to college. She’d gotten accepted at a liberal arts school only a town away, and although she knew she intended to pursue ballet for as long as her limbs could carry her, something else needed to pay the bills. And so she was going to study English Literature, something she felt she could excel at with Armin’s help.

Why did Mikasa want to study the nature of words?

Well, what was more complex than that?

Because there was a magic that coursed through the world, a flow that poured from lovers’ eyes and through to the subject of fixed gazes—and literature captured all of that. That’s what it was for. To give voice to the small triumphs and catastrophes of human emotions; to explain the unexplainable and describe what has no shape. 

That was her way of carrying Armin’s legacy, for his own brilliant mind couldn’t attend college. It was her own way of understanding what she felt for people, the world she lived in, everything. Because all that—it was love. Not a choice. A feeling.  _ Love. _

But Mikasa didn’t oppose Mama attending her dance with Papa. Not this time. Whatever made them happy, she supposed. And Papa had said he needed to speak to her, probably to ask for her forgiveness for the billionth time. I’m working things out with your mother, he’d say. Aren’t you proud?

Aren’t you happy?

No. Mikasa felt the answer deep inside to her very core. No.  _ Because your choice was to ruin this family, to pursue your impulses instead of honoring what you’d build on such a strong foundation. Because by doing that, you abandoned me. Abandoned Mama. Your family. How could you? _

How could Grisha?

And then Mikasa felt that perhaps she understood what Mama meant. Even if it was only for the briefest of moments, she realized. She understood. 

Maybe love was a choice after all. The choice to stay.

**—o—**

It’s the night of the recital, and Eren waited backstage with a bouquet of bellflowers in his hands (which cost him a pretty damn penny, what with all their rarity and whatever). He waited until a shadow with long black hair appeared. His heart startled a little, then settled back in his chest when he recognized who it belonged to.

“Mrs. Ackerman.”

“Eren,” Mikasa’s mother smiled. “You’ve gotten so big. You’re so handsome, look at you.”

He snorted at her compliment, feeling his cheeks warm up. Only Mrs. Ackerman could flatter him like that. Her tone and posture was as lithe and graceful as ever. She was always so composed, and Eren thought of how much she contrasted his own mother. Mom was all curse words and old books and beer and big smiles and tattoos. Mrs. Ackerman’s all rigid spine and thin lips and pointy nose and quiet aura. She was like a queen. Everything about her was gentle and regal. Just like Mikasa.

She was lost to them somewhere onstage, so her mother took this moment to tell him, “She loves you, you know. My daughter.”

Eren smiled warmly. “Yeah, I know.”

“I feel… I don’t know.”

“What?”

“I feel I may not be in her life for much longer.”

Eren frowned at that. What could she mean? He chuckled nervously at whatever she was trying to say, running an awkward hand through his hair. He figured maybe she was joking. But Mrs. Ackerman wasn’t one to joke. It’s honestly what always made her so fucking terrifying.

So what could she mean?

“Don’t say that,” Eren breathed, gripping the flowers tightly. His hands were trembling. He didn’t know why.

“I have to go collect Mikasa’s father,” she said, her gaze cast elsewhere. She seemed… sad. Eren couldn’t understand why for the life of him. 

“Okay.” He stared down at the flower petals nestled against his chest. They were rich and vibrant, happy with color. To cheer her up, he extended them out to Mrs. Ackerman, grinned, and said, “Here. For you.”

“What?” The woman’s thin eyebrows shot upwards. “For me?”

“Yes.” Eren smiled even brighter, gave the grin Mrs. Ackerman always complimented him on because it made his dimple go in all the way.

She took the bouquet from his hands and thanked him with an imperceptible bow of her head. For a moment, he thought that she would hug him. Part of him wanted that, too. After losing Dad. And Mom. And everything. A mother’s embrace was all Eren felt he needed. But she wasn’t one for physical affection like that—she’d only hugged him once when he was twelve and had bought her a present for her wedding anniversary with all the money from his piggy bank. That, and the extra twenty bucks he got from Dad to pay for what he didn’t have enough to cover with spare change.

She didn’t hug him. Instead, she said, “Take care of her, Eren. For me.”

“Always,” he promised. 

And as she walked away, he studied her, held on to her presence until it was nothing but a small dot in the distance. She disappeared, along with the happy purple flowers. And Eren was so unaware of their coming fate. They would rain. Rain from the sky like shards of burning paper and fall onto a fire, a groaning monster of garbled metal and reeling tires with a fire that consumed them. Consumed everything.

And they would blow up.

Burst.

After that—silence.

Just silence.

The world would go so tragically still.

**—o—**

Mikasa knew what happened before the news even reached her ears.

She knew what happened because when her tired body heaved and heaved and heaved and heaved and her eyes searched and searched and searched and searched and they found no sign of Mama or Papa—not a trace not a glimpse not a scrap of them—she knew it in her gut because they weren’t there. They weren’t there. And they were supposed to but they weren’t there and she was shocked too shocked to feel to think to process anything to process—

They’re dead.

Mama.

Papa.

Dead.

Her childhood, her life, her world, her home, all shattered. 

BOOM. 

GONE.

AND WHY? HOW? WHAT DID SHE EVER DO FOR THIS TO HAPPEN GOD WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS TO THEM JUST ANSWER TELL HER WHY DON’T YOU SEE SHE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND SHE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND YOU OR LOVE YOU OR TRUST YOU ANYMORE YOU ABANDONED HER YOU TRICKED HER INTO BELIEVING IN YOU AND FOR WHAT FOR WHAT TO HURT HER YOU—

“Mikasa!”

Gasping, she stopped.

Her fists were trapped in Eren’s hands. They trembled. They wanted to keep pushing, to keep punching, to keep fighting. But Eren wrapped his arms around her, squeezed her tight. Frantic eyes went to Armin, to the hospital’s walls, the ceiling, and she asked.

_ Why, Kami? _

It was then that she started sobbing. 

She was glad Armin couldn’t hear her screams, but he bore witness to the way she convulsed with every jerk and wail and cry her body emitted, all within the arms of Eren. And moments later, Armin’s as well.

How could the world be so fragile? The ground be so weak as to shatter right below her feet?

The rudest awakenings come from tragedies that can’t be fathomed beforehand, the devastations there’s no predicting or preparing for. Those are the ones that tear you open to bleed out. 

Slowly, eventually, Mikasa found the strength to speak again. 

She had to. It was when she had to deliver her parents’ eulogy at their funeral before hundreds of eyes. And it was funny, so funny, how her voice did not crack—not once. Not even when tears spilled from her eyes and blurred her vision. Not even when she realized Uncle Levi never came. She’d thought that with Carla’s death and Grisha’s disappearance, she’d felt the world’s greatest pains. How little she knew. There weren’t enough words, enough languages in the world to convey her sorrow. 

How did Eren do this? 

He was only ten. How did he do it?

It was all backwards. Children are not meant to bury their parents like this. Mikasa was merely eighteen. Her life was just starting. And theirs ended in an evening like any other. One with nightfall and clouds in the sky and people breathing and dogs barking and tires rolling on asphalt and cars zipping on the streets because it was just another evening, everything was normal. But everything changed.

If only Mama and Papa had waited one more second, one more millisecond, they would’ve gotten into the car later, turned on the ignition later, coursed into the highway later, just a millisecond later and missed that lucid driver, missed that collision, that bang of gasoline and exhaust, of fire and pallid ice. They would’ve missed it and been okay. Been here. Like they’re meant to be.

Mikasa felt so thick with grief and exhaustion that when Eren pulled her aside after the funeral and asked her if she was cold, she could not nod, could not respond, could not do anything. She didn’t even know if she was.

“Here,” he whispered, wrapping the red scarf he wore around her neck. It was soft and smelled of him, of home, a veil of warmth that secluded her. She closed her eyes and felt it, pinched it between her fingers and dug her nose into the fabric. With an inhale, its redolence filled her so intensely that the hairs at the back of her neck prickled awake. 

With an exhale, she pulled the scarf away from her face, looked up at Eren. His hair was longer, bangs reaching past his eyes. She realized how innocent he looked, watching her with the tenderness he always had for her and the worry that was so new. There were no bruises or scratches on him, no recent fights. He looked so much like his mother. Carla was gone, but still on his face. But still gone.

_ How did Eren do this? _

“Isn’t this Carla’s scarf?” she asked him, mildly shocked that her voice wasn’t hoarse and croaky from lack of use. Eren only stared at her.

“It was,” he said. His eyes were puffy from crying. They looked, somehow, even brighter that way. More green and blue. “It’s yours now.”

“Thanks.”

“Of course.”

Silence, then. 

There were the distant cries of crows and the faint crackling of melting snow. Her parents were twenty feet below it. They didn’t belong there. Her heart ached at the thought.

Mikasa hated snow. It was cruel, cold, unforgiving. It’s what made the tires skid and the cars clash and twist and turn and flip and burn. It’s what made Papa’s friendly eyes disappear from the world forever, Mama’s calm voice no longer soothe the air she breathed. She couldn’t bear to think of it anymore.

Tired, she collapsed into Eren and he held her, said nothing, for there was nothing more to say.

Clinging to his body, she let him be what kept her from buckling to her knees. The makeup of his entirety—all the bones and muscles and pulse points and veins—was all she was intent on feeling. Just for a bit, a small moment. She wanted to feel and breathe and think Eren. Only Eren. She’d cried herself dry. Felt herself numb. All she wanted was the sanctuary of him. He felt so holy. Like a shrine.

“Come live with me,” he said after a while, nose still buried in her hair. “Live with me and Armin.”

Mikasa pulled back to look up into his eyes. “What?”

“Come live with us,” he said again, fixing the scarf more securely around her neck. “Grandpa Arlert is giving us his old house. We’re moving in soon. There’s an extra room, Miki. A room just for you.” 

“A room?” she peeped, her voice barely leaving her. “In Grandpa Arlert’s home?”

Eren nodded, and he gave a smile Mikasa hadn’t seen him give since her parents died. It was Mama’s favorite, the one that made his dimple sink all the way in. Mikasa never knew why she liked it so much. Now she’d never be able to ask her.

“Listen, Mik. I promise I’ll always protect you. You have me, a place to go. Come with me. I’m here and so is Armin.” 

“But—”

“Mikasa. You have me. Armin, you and me. We’re a home.”

“Home?” she echoed, hardly knowing what that word meant anymore. Every time she blinked, she saw Mama, Papa, blazing behind her eyelids. And she entertained the thought that perhaps they’d want her to change course, to live her best life in whatever form that looked like now after everything that happened. The thought grew, and grew, and grew, until it became a decision. She’d do it—in their name, in their honor. She would make a life with Eren, with Armin, and she would start anew. Because that was love, her love for them. Her choice. 

“Okay. I’ll live with you, Eren.” _And for you. I’ll always live for you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have thoughts. 
> 
> first of all, apologies for the possible clumsiness of this chapter, as it was pumped out of me in 2 hours. also, apologies for the delay in posting. i'm sorry for those of you who waited and sent me messages (i appreciate you!!!). and also, i'm just going to say this now: shit's about to start. 
> 
> there's only two more past chapters left (!!!!!) and they show why mikasa left. yes, that's right. finally. all i will say is that the next couple of chapters are the peak of the story. i have no idea how i did it, but i kind of feel like i wrote the story's climax in 5 chapters like the dramatic nutsack that i am.
> 
> we are about to see the characters do very difficult things--both beautiful and ugly. that's in part why i decided to write the story, to help me process the realities of life, the glories and devastations that encompass being alive. but god, did i have a lot to process with this fic, apparently.
> 
> holy shit, i will shut up now. as always, thank you thank you thank you for all your love. this story now has 700+ kudos and that's far more than it ever had the first time around. i love and appreciate you, and i'll see you soon (sobs).
> 
> happy new year!  
> nati


	29. And Then Fate Pulled Us Back Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: graphic sexual content, blood and violence.

Last night, Jean came back.

And he’d found her there, sitting in the shower with the water running down her frame. It was perfect timing. He’d returned just as she’d washed herself—all notion of Eren—away. And she’d greeted him by coming right out of the shower and straight into his arms. And he hadn’t questioned her when their kiss deepened, when her fingers worked at undoing the buttons of his shirt and she grabbed his hands to guide him to their bedroom. She left a trail of water dripped over the floor, the shower still running to drown out every word and whisper, all the lies she told.

Last night, she remembers.

By the time Jean was sitting on the edge of the bed and she was on his lap, her skin was oozing, dribbling droplets onto him from the corners of her face, her hair, her fingertips. His clothes were wet where she’d touched him, and she’d winced when he wasn’t looking, when he had her in his mouth. And it hurt. It hurt so much because it brought her back to Eren. Back to his hands on her, his teeth on her, his breath on her, even as she started rocking on her fiancé’s lap as they were present and connected. 

Last night, Jean had said.

“Nothing,” when she’d asked him what was wrong. He’d pulled back suddenly to gape at her, eyes wide, mouth ajar with a gasp that left them both speechless. And she’d gone to persist, to ask him no, what, tell me. But then she was thrown over onto her back and she burned and she ached because his mouth on her was far too hot, too scathing. She was crude and tainted and still so wrong, so ridden with guilt and filth and even when she spurred him on, when she moaned for him to keep going, she burned in all the places Eren had poured gasoline.

Last night, he went too far.

Because after he was done, he held her open, far too deep for her to shield so that she was raw enough for him to stare. He never commented on the cut on her knee, but she knew he’d noticed it—he always noticed everything. She felt his eyes on her, and when she’d gone to hide, he flipped her on her stomach and pulled her up to kneel and fucked her so hard it was almost overbearing. He’d never done that before. He’d never gone rough without asking first, never pulled her hair so far back that her neck strained too much for her to breathe, never finished without a word of warning.

But she thinks… 

No, she knows.

She knows why.

There are markings on her, and Mikasa doesn’t know where Eren’s end and Jean’s begin. Part of her wishes her skin would break open and bleed all of the bruises out, leaving nothing but gaping, empty spaces where their mouths should’ve never been.

She hates herself.

And for the faintest flicker of time, she thinks she even hates Jean and Eren.

It must be some time after 12:00 AM, because the city nightlife thrums outside how it always does on late Saturdays. Funny, how alive it all sounds. Mikasa listens in with a numbness so intense it’s almost heavy.

Sighing, she turns her head to Jean only to find nothing, feels for him to see that his side of the bed has gone cold. She’s still tired when she rises to find her phone and dials his number, holding the device to her ear as her eyes close to listen in. She takes in every tone—intermittent and deep. It rings and rings but there’s never an answer. She gives up after the third try, and decides not to go back to bed until he returns.

There’s really not much to do, and she’s wide awake now, so she decides to clean. It’s always been the apartment. This time, she wants to purge all the dirt within herself. 

Mikasa starts a bath, undresses, and stares at her own reflection in the mirror. She’s gotten thinner. Gauntly, almost. The hickeys have darkened, stains of plum and violet-red scattered across her neck and chest, destination points that draw out trailless maps on tainted surfaces. Some of them are shapeless contusions, some parallel teeth marks, and she’s done this to herself—prompted all of them. She looks away the moment tears prick her eyes. Not now. Not like this. She won’t cry here.

She dips into the hot soup and marinates for what feels like a very long time. It must’ve been only minutes, for Jiji doesn’t purr or wake or move. The city trills outside. The water doesn’t lose any of its heat. Time is transfixed in its position. 

Slowly, her head sinks into the water until the back of her skull settles on the bottom of the tub, her long hair swaying up around her head like black seaweed.

Mikasa holds her breath.

She holds it for so long that her heartbeat quickens and her lungs claw for breath, desperate for oxygen. But even then, she does not resurface. Even then, she holds still.

_ Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump. _

She feels each and every drum within her, lets them lull her almost to a meditative state. She could drown here. It wouldn’t matter. Her mind goes blank, finally still, and she revels in the calm within her, at this rare glimpse of peace.

But then her heart stops.

Stings.

Her eyes flare open, the water shattering as she jerks upwards, gasping and coughing with stuttering lips. She holds her legs close to her body, shivering, covered in a sheen of bath water. Her hair is plastered to her neck and forehead and back, to her heaving chest.

Something’s gone terribly wrong. And she knows, and she knows. Immediately, she knows.

It’s Eren.

**—o—**

He doesn’t know who it is until their fist crashes against his jaw.

Eren’s drunk. Drunk enough to lose his balance and stagger aggressively onto the crummy wall of the bar’s back alley. His body hits the bricks with a solid knock, pushing the air right out of him. When he’s steady again—his jaw throbbing as he rolls and pops it… 

He turns.

Smiles.

“Hey, Jean.”

Another punch. It splits his lip.

Eren stumbles back, cupping a hand to his mouth. His head’s reeling already, but even then he registers the blood at his fingertips, tastes it in his mouth. “Shit,” he whispers, already heaving as he straightens back up to look at Jean. Even this late at night, he can see the rage in his eyes clearly.

It makes him laugh. 

That earns him another hit, which Eren dodges, capitulating when it makes Jean even angrier and sends a ringed knuckle to his face. And he takes it. He lets him hit him again, and again, and then again. And he takes it.

Why?

“You fucking shit,” Jean hisses, balls of his spit falling onto Eren’s face. “You fucking shit, I can’t get rid of you.”

“Mikasa?” Eren slurs. Jean flinches violently at the sound of her name. “What? Did you find the hickeys I left on her?”

Jean’s expression grows pained. 

“Right on her tit.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Eren smiles, blood staining his teeth. “She tasted great.”

He’s pummeled in the stomach, a hard blow that makes him keel over and fall to his knees. Eren wheezes, holding his aching gut. It takes everything in him not to crumble flat onto the ground.

Jean’s fixing his wristwatch. “You’re one suicidal bastard, aren’t you? Talking like that.”

Eren gags, trying not to vomit. 

“Got anything else to say?”

“No.”

“Good.”

When he swallows, he tastes metal, gags again at the taste of his own blood. And he can almost sense Jean’s anger falter, pity, sadness, he doesn’t know what, seeping into his voice when he speaks again. He sounds like he’s about to cry.

“How could you?” Jean asks him, walking back to give him space to breathe. “How could you do this to her? To me?”

Eren’s in too much pain to answer. He groans, fighting to get back on his feet but he can’t, he just trips and holds himself up with his palms on the ground. His hair spills around his face so that he can't see anything, just feel a trickle of moisture roll along his temple and splatter onto the floor.

Fuck, he’s bleeding way too much.

“We’re getting married,” Jean continues, his voice cracking again. “We’re getting married and you sleep with her?”

“I didn’t sleep with her,” Eren barely manages.

“Liar!” Jean explodes. He kicks Eren onto his back, shouting again as he falls over, “I saw them, all those marks on her! They’re all from you!”

Eren pants, surrendering fully. There’s a moment where their breathing is the only noise around them, until Jean forces him up by the collar of his coat, grunting as he lifts the weight of him.

“Fight back,” he raps. Jean’s practically carrying Eren, holding him up so close the tip of his nose nearly grazes his cheek. “Fight back, Eren.”

“No.” He coughs, gripping Jean’s wrists. “I can’t.”

“Fight back!”

Eren winces, turning his head to spit out a wad of bloody saliva.

“Fight. Please.”

“I can’t.”

“Is it because of Mikasa?”

“Yes,” he says pitifully. “I can’t.”

Jean breaks. He begs, “Please, don’t make me do this.”

“I love her,” Eren says softly, blood spilling from his lower lip, his cheekbone, his temple. “I do.”

This time, Jean’s actually crying.

“Why can’t you just let her go?” he sobs.

Eren’s eyes open completely. They rise to meet Jean’s tears, feeling the beginnings of his own simmer behind every slow blink.

And he asks him, “Why can’t you?”

Then he’s flinching, gritting his teeth to anticipate the blow Jean’s threatening him with. His fist trembles in the air, held up beside his head.

A pent up breath.

A second.

And then Eren’s thrown onto his back. 

He hears the quiet thump of footsteps, the scurrying of Jean leaving to go back to his perfect home and perfect love and life. To pretend that none of this ever happened. That Eren never happened. And there’s no one else around him. The city is so quiet. So quiet, leaving him alone to blink skyward with his own blood on his face and neck and coat and there’s no stars in the sky but even then he swears that he hears Armin. Mikasa. His eyelids flicker, and he’s so cold, counting his breaths as he steadily loses consciousness.

She’s the last thing he sees before closing his eyes.

**—o—**

Mikasa’s hair is still damp when Jean makes it back, its ends grazing the arms she crosses over her chest. She’s raw, her face barren of any makeup, clad in outerwear and it’s all so confusing. She looks about ready to leave, her purse only inches away and stuffed with her belongings. She smells like soap and shampoo, not perfume. Her look, her aura, it’s all strange and unusual to Jean, as he’s never seen her this way before.

Never seen her angry.

“Jean,” she says the moment he’s home. “Please,” her voice is soft but stern, laden with something heavy. “Sit.”

He does.

She eyes the blood on his fists, grits her teeth but says nothing.

“I was—”

“I know where you were,” she interjects, quieting him. “And, frankly, that’s not what I want to talk to you about.”

Jean rubs his tired eyes, his knuckles stinking of blood. “Then what?” he says calmly, stretching his arms out to the sides. “I’m here, ‘Kasa. I’m all yours.”

She is expressionless. Her lips are the only part of her face that moves. “I know what you did.”

Jean scoffs. “And do you know why?”

“Enlighten me.”

Laughter. It’s a cruel, breathless sound. “Really, Mikasa?”

She nods.

“You really want me to tell you?”

“Sure,” she shrugs. “Why don’t you?”

Jean’s face burns red with fury and intoxication. He rises, the bar stool complaining against the floor, and walks over to her. She has to stare up at him from the tops of her eyes once he’s standing only inches from her face, his breath on her face when he spits, “You cheated on me.”

Mikasa’s tone is ruthless. “I did.”

Jean’s features fall. She can practically see the way his heart breaks by the mere look on his face. Something in her wants to break away, to stop the way she knows she’s hurting him—the way she’s been hurting him since the very moment Eren came back into her life. But then she thinks of what he’s done, what they’ve all done, and all the mercy in her turns to stark, cold stone.

“Why?” he asks her.

“Jean, I think it’s time I told you the truth.”

“Which is?”

“I love him.”

A startled pause.

For a moment, Mikasa thinks he will hit her. But he’s not like that, she remembers, not even now. Not even after what he’s done to Eren. Instead, he cries. Droplets grow then fall from his eyes, his voice cracking with, “What?”

“I love him,” she repeats, feeling her heart pounding all the way up to her temples. “I have loved him all my life.”

“But—”

“You were right, Jean. You were right. He loves me, and I love him. It’s really that simple.”

“How could you do this to me?”

She sighs softly. “I never intended to hurt you.”

“No.” Jean’s weeping now, clasping his face in his hands. Mikasa feels herself starting to crack, tears welling in her eyes as she stares at the bruises on his knuckles, thinking of how those come from fists meeting bone and flesh. Fists meeting Eren. “I don’t even know you anymore,” he says. 

“Well,” Mikasa swallows down the lump in her throat. “That makes two of us.”

“Stop,” he begs, seizing her trembling hands. “Mik—”

“Don’t you understand?” she whispers, shaking her head. “I could marry you a thousand times and  _ nothing _ you could ever do would make me stop loving him.”

“You’re killing me,” Jean breathes. “Please, Mikasa.”

“I’m leaving you,” she tells him, jerking her hands free of his grasp. She gathers her things and, without another word, goes to leave. Halfway to the door, a tight grip on her upper arm makes her gasp and come to a full stop.

“No,” Jean says, holding her arm so tight his nails nearly cut into her. He inches closer to her, so close she can smell the alcohol in his breath, the tinge of gin and olives. “You are my  _ wife _ ,” he hisses, with such fervor and possession that it makes Mikasa sick.

She leans in one final time, matching the fire in his eyes. “I am not your fucking wife.”

Jiji jumps when the front door bangs shut, leaving behind crumbling walls that quake with the sobs of a falling man. And she wonders why she ever tried to convince herself that she belongs there, anyway.

**—o—**

Eren. Eren, wake up.

_ Armin? _

What are you doing? Get up!

_ I can’t. _

What do you mean? Since when do you turn down a fight?

_ It’s over, Ar. It’s over. _

It’s not over yet.

_ I lost her. _

Says who?

_ I lost her. _

Says who, Eren?

_ Come back, little man. I miss you. _

I know.

_ Can’t you see I need you? _

Well, you are pretty helpless without me.

_ She hates me. _

She couldn’t hate you even if she tried.

_ How do you know? _

I know everything, remember?

_ Right. _

Wake up, Eren. Wake up.

_ I’m hurting her, Ar.  _

Stop it.

_ I’ve fucked up. _

Stop it. Wake up. You love her, don’t you?

_ So much. _

You love me, don’t you?

_ Yes, so much. _

Then fight back, Eren. You gotta fight.

_ Come back, Armin. _

I can’t.

_ Please? _

I can’t, Eren.

_ I can’t wake up. _

You can. I’ll do it with you.

_ Yeah? _

Yeah.

_ You promise? _

I promise. You’re gonna fight, Eren. You’re gonna make me proud.

_ Armin… _

Yes?

_ Thank you. _

No biggie.

_ Come back. _

Eren, tell me. 

_ What? _

How are you?

_ Still alive. _

Then fight.

**—o—**

She walks.

Snowflakes fall from the sky, clouds stifling the moonlight with their giant shadows. Mikasa’s eyes scroll over the city, searching, wishing she could find Levi. Mama. Papa. Carla. Armin.

Anyone.

It shocks her that she’s still here, that she’s functioning after so much devastation. Her heart feels heavy in her chest, carrying things that weigh so much it leaves her breathless. Carrying the look on Jean’s face when she confessed her truth to him, the way his eyes overflowed, an ache in him she’d never seen before, caused before. Carrying the fact that she got herself into this huge mess, that she doesn’t know how to fix this, how to fix anything.

Useless. So damn useless. It’s not long before she realizes where she is. She’s been here countless times before; her body must’ve carried her here via muscle memory. 

Their bench.

She looks around. Looks up. 

Snowflakes stick to her hair, to the tip of her nose, her lips, her eyelashes. They meet her skin with timid busses, soft reminders that she’s still alive despite all the reluctance in her, the numbness she craves but cannot find now, the fight in her that’s gone right out. 

She thinks to pray, but she hasn’t done that in so long. Still, her heart yearns to reach out to something, anything. So why not God?

Sitting, she waits for nothing. Her fingers graze her neck absentmindedly, tracing where Eren’s hickeys are, where Jean’s are, markings she knows only time can heal. Only time can heal so many things.

It’s cold out. It was on a snowy day like this that Mikasa lost Mama and Papa. That she lost Armin. And now she’s lost Jean, herself. What’s left? What’s there left to lose now? She laughs ironically at her life and wonders what Levi would say about all of this—yet another mess she’s gotten herself into. What would he advise her to do?

And Eren.

What would he say? If he were here, what would he tell her?

She wants him with her, a longing so intense it feels like there’s ice in her only his heat can thaw. Craving him, his scent, his warmth, everything that’s soft and safe about him, she closes her eyes, takes in a breath, and she prays the way Mama taught her to, whispering the secrets in her mouth like a cherry pit inside her cheek.

_ Eren, wherever you are, just be okay. Be safe. It’s all I want from you.  _

_ And come back. _

_ Please. Come back to me. _

Her fingers trace the marks on her neck again. The red scarf, Mikasa wonders where she left it; she can’t remember even that. Maybe it’s back with Jean, lost somewhere in their massive apartment. But she can’t go back there. She can never go back there. Sighing, she opens her eyes—and that’s when she sees him. 

It’s Eren.

Her eyes brim with tears.

“Hi,” she whispers gently, as if her voice might scare his fragile presence away. His face is smattered with dried up blood and cuts and bruises, a state he bears with no complaints. She feels the need to console them, soothe his aches. But he says nothing, does nothing. He merely stands.

“Eren,” Mikasa says into the silence, her breath puffing out as smoke. “I’m so sorry.”

He sighs.

“I didn’t know he would do that. I didn’t—”

“It’s so good,” Eren says, closing his eyes. “It’s so good, Mikasa, to see you again.”

Her vision blurs, the lump in her throat tightening. “Yes,” she breathes. “Yes, ditto.” She wants to say more, but then Eren tugs his phone from his coat pocket and waves it out. 

“You really have to figure out how to stop sharing your location, Mik.”

She scoffs out a little laugh, drying her tears when he makes his way to sit beside her. Eren groans softly, cursing under his breath, and Mikasa’s anxious with a need to protect him, and the knowing that it’s far too late for that. She wants to hold him close, to feel him close. Feel that he’s here, that he’s okay, he’s okay, he’s with her. Nothing can hurt him now. Nobody can hurt him.

She eyes the scarf he has draped behind his neck. It’s her scarf. He has it.

“You left this,” he says, noticing her looking at it.

Mikasa blinks. His eyes meet hers and they look so vivid, so green and blue and pure. They’ve always looked like that no matter how he is—battered and bruised up, groggy with sleep, alight with excitement, even when they dampen with tears… they always look the same. 

Her hand rises to hold his cheek before she can even think to stop it. Eren winces at the contact, but then softens under her fingertips. His face is cold, and Mikasa wonders when was the last time the hands that touched him didn’t come from an attack, when it last was that he was held with tenderness.

“Did…” she starts, sighing shakily. “Did you go and get it? The scarf?”

“Yeah.”

“All beat—“

“The girls back home are fucked up about it,” he says. “Hitch tried to hold me down to keep me from coming. They’ll get over it.”

Mikasa curls into herself, teeming with shame. “They must hate me right now.”

Eren nods slowly, not even bothering to contradict her. “Yeah. But I don’t.”

Their eyes meet again. Not too long ago, they’d sat here on Christmas and claimed this as their bench. Mikasa thinks of the sharp contrast between then and now, how, back then, when Eren and her first sat here, they were both hiding behind facades—him holding in all that usually comes out, the things he wanted to do and all the things he wanted to say; and Mikasa running away, the way she always did, from the things that scared her. 

But now, there’s no more hiding. No more running. This is the first time they truly see each other. In all this time since meeting again, this is the first time Mikasa truly sees him.

“I left Jean,” she whispers. “I left him, Eren. And I have nowhere to go.”

“Don’t be stupid,” he sighs, rolling his eyes at her. He’s quick to take the scarf from his neck and wrap it around hers. He does a sloppy job of it, flinging it over her shoulder when he’s done. It smells of him. Of his apartment. “Let’s go home,” he tells her then, and offers nothing more. Just, “Let’s go home, please.” 

So they do.

As they walk, Mikasa grabs his hand. It’s freezing, crusted with dirt and blood. But she doesn’t care. She wants to say so much, has so much to tell him, but all that moves her lips is a small smile, a gesture of gratitude she hopes he understands.

“Thank you, Eren.”

He nods. They make their way back to his apartment, two shivering bodies pushing through the cold. She stares at him the entire time, studying every piece of him. Even the way he breathes—softly, in and out—makes so much sense to her. Eren. The only sound thing among the chaos.

Mikasa tightens her grip on his hand, never lets him go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hate this chapter with every fiber of my being. 
> 
> i've mentioned before that i am not one to stray from difficult topics, but this entire chapter honestly kills chapter 5 level of uncomfortable for me. i practically wrote the entire thing while peering at my computer screen through my fingers and wearing a constant grimace on my face. 
> 
> someone noticed a bit ago that noy mikasa is inspired by the lost girls ova version of her, and thank you for noticing because this is true! noy mikasa is sensitive, idealistic, and doesn't have the stoicism that canon mikasa needed to adapt at such a young age to survive. noy mika's devastations happen later in life and as she doesn't go around slaying titans, i've had to find ways to depict her strength and resilience in emotional ways. many people have called her weak in the past, but i'll be stubborn in the way i beg to differ. resilience comes from overcoming struggle, and i'm not afraid to make her struggle here. she struggles in canon. i'll defend this one.
> 
> also, she should honestly kick both eren and jean's asses for the way they've spoken about her to hurt each other. although struggling with her humanity and feminism etc. is a part of her character, she should sincerely give them both an individual ass whooping like "excuse me who are you talking about like that only i can talk about myself like that thanks???"
> 
> so yeah, brutal chapter for me to write. call me brave or stupid. i'd agree to both. 
> 
> thank you always for your comments, tweets, dm's, anons and support. i have been slow to respond to them, but please know they mean the world to me. noy is nearly at 800 kudos. that blows my damn mind. 
> 
> see you next week,   
> nati


	30. When We Ventured to The Outside World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: major character death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not over yet must be the fanfic of playlists. as promised, here's the third playlist, [for armin](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/531llo80Q3oj7pU4na0JEM?si=rAYzZWhESkSob66NBupi6g). there's one more. i shan't share why or for what. but here it is, and here goes.

**::** [](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/531llo80Q3oj7pU4na0JEM?si=ZPxvQYO9TCmlEt0S4ZUXgQ)[](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/531llo80Q3oj7pU4na0JEM?si=ZPxvQYO9TCmlEt0S4ZUXgQ) **::**

**—o—**

A life without Mama and Papa and Grisha took adjusting. It took grieving. Things that go hand in hand.

Their primary source of guidance came from Levi’s distant help and Grandpa Arlert, who welcomed them into his home with open arms. They moved in as he went out, leaving the three of them to care for an acre of land, grass, trees, and a big old house with floral walls and dusty door jambs. The house was ancient, but that’s what made it nice: cozy for Mikasa, stable for Armin, and a project for Eren rebuild.

It took weeks. But they managed to resurrect it.

The process of moving in felt like somewhat of a blur at first; it was odd to restart like that, to build something new after so much devastation. But loss has a way of clearing space for things, and in those barren corners, Armin and Eren and Mikasa found a way to make room for some light to creep inside.

It was mostly Eren that did the labor work—it kept him busy, kept his mind off of the bad stuff. Mikasa followed suit, helping with heavy things and cleaning up all the messes. The first couple of days, it kept her numb, a state she desperately needed. 

They ripped wallpaper off the walls, polished the creaky hardwood floors on their hands and knees as Armin stood by watching, lingering around them because even though he couldn’t really participate, it was still his home. He wanted to be part of the work, even if all he did was talk to them and bring them lemonade and help clean the dust off Eren’s face when he’d accidentally wipe some on his forehead.

Time resumed. It always does. 

And so they adjusted, they grieved, and they kept going.

Somewhere along that blur, hope happened. They rebuilt and redecorated and rested and then worked again. There were days where Armin felt strong enough to help out, and Eren would let him paint, even if Mikasa would object and worry and Eren still had to brush over all the spots he missed. He always let Armin help when he promised he could do it, because although surgery was still a ways away, he was grieving too. How could he not, when illness threatened early stops to all his new beginnings?

Grief has a very interesting way of healing. It clears when you’re not looking at it, when you let it rest so that it mends itself. 

So they adjusted, they grieved, and they kept going.

One morning, Mikasa traced her fingertips over a small crack on one of the walls in Eren’s bedroom, a crack she said she didn’t want to fill. Sometimes, things were better when they showed their scars. It gave them a story. It gave them life.

When they were done, they celebrated.

Music filled the newly decorated rooms, the vast hallways, every polished corner of their house. Leonard Cohen’s voice permeated all throughout, and they danced. Eren grabbed Mikasa’s hand and lifted it above her head, prompting her to dip below it and turn as she giggled in a way Armin could recognize from their childhood. Sometimes, her laughter grew inside her chest in a way that made her look so open, like a flower in full bloom. And Eren always laughed so bright, it was as warm and omnipresent as the sun itself. Armin had grimaced and feigned a gag when they stopped to kiss each other, which made Mikasa hide her face in her hands and Eren smile guiltily. 

That night, they all slept on the same bed.

Partly, because the floors in Armin’s room weren’t completely done yet. Mostly, because Mikasa liked to make sure he was breathing at night. She always felt that he’d whisk away, disappear from his place right beside them. Hearing his little snores, she closed her eyes, her hand at his back to feel every sway of breath and drum of heartbeat. 

Eren was awfully quiet.

“Mik,” he said at some point, awakening her from a state of half-slumber.

“Yeah?” she whispered, turning her head to face the silhouette of his body.

“Surgery is coming,” he told her. “Are you worried?”

“I’m worried sick,” she sighed. “I’m so worried he won’t make it.”

“We should do something. Something before he has to go in.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we should ask him.” 

“I think I know what he’d love,” the girl breathed into the darkness. She was so tired, she barely registered her own words. But she still murmured, “Don’t worry. I know what Armin would like.”

Eren exhaled. His breath was dense and sleepless, a ribbon that fell into Mikasa’s mouth with a kiss. He tasted sweet, youthful. She held his cheek, deepening their kiss before tearing free to whisper that she loved him. And he knew, they all knew. Shrouded in each other’s arms, they fell asleep like that, with Armin sleeping beside them and the moonlight creeping in through a crack in the windows, the night outside chirping and riveting, all of it breathing. All of it alive.

**—o—**

Armin had to admit a lot of things. Things he liked. Things he didn’t.

Living with Eren and Mikasa was very different from what he had anticipated. They were his best friends—had been for as long as he could remember, but he witnessed things about them he had never seen before.

Mostly, they were tender. They loved each other in ways he already knew: Mikasa’s solid and loyal care, Eren’s intensity and protection. They were good together, they fit. Eren’s blaze knew when to spur Mikasa, and her steady trickle knew how to quell him down. They were quiet at times, placid in each other’s presence and in the way they came together to take care of him. They’d take turns, sometimes work as a pair, sometimes be so involved in one another they’d forget he was even there. 

Armin caught glimpses of all their states: when they’d joke around, play-wrestle with each other, when Eren would work so many hours he’d fall asleep even at the dinner table and Mikasa would drape blankets over him no matter where he slept. Trying to wake him up was always futile. 

They had everything that comes with a relationship, at least on paper. They touched each other, kissed each other, had sex. Mikasa liked to nestle up against Eren’s back when he was busy doing something; he’d touch ticklish spots when walking past her to make her react—and she had so many. They spoke of things Armin couldn’t read on their lips. They’d hide from him when they wanted to, like two parents finding respite from the responsibilities of managing a child. Armin supposed he must’ve felt like one to them. He certainly would think so of himself, what with all the constant care he needed.

It wasn’t often, but there were nights he couldn’t find them in their respective bedrooms, and he was too nervous to check around and ask for help or company in fear of finding something very dreadful. Vomiting wasn’t the only thing that woke him up at night. Sometimes, he had nightmares. But nothing in the _world_ was worse than finding his best friends sleeping in the same bed in what Armin was smart enough to know was a naked state. He had to jolt them awake one morning to ask for help bathing, and he was pretty sure he’d rather drop dead immediately than see Eren’s bare ass again. 

Still, he marveled at all of it. Their relationship was so bewildering. Armin had no idea what it was, how it felt to fancy someone and have them reach back out, chase you. He didn’t know what it was to kiss somebody or sleep with somebody or call them his. Part of him suspected that this made him less of a person, inadequate in yet another sense. But perhaps some people were just never made for those kinds of things. 

Eren and Mikasa were, though. They adored each other like they were born to do it.

Amin tried to be supportive, to not take sides when they argued, to look away when they engaged in (albeit rare) PDA and react when he felt like embarrassing them. He’d giggled once when Eren smacked Mikasa’s ass so hard she knocked him one in the arm and made him pay for it. He’d blushed when addressing certain roommate issues, like the time he found her panties in the back seat of their truck while—horrifyingly enough—they were all still in it. Mikasa nearly fainted from the shame. Eren laughs when he’s nervous, and he laughed so hard at that there were literal tears in his eyes—which earned him another punch. From both of them.

Even in his own home, Armin sometimes felt that he was intruding, guilty of the fact that Eren and Mikasa couldn’t freely engage in their dynamic together. They couldn’t be openly affectionate in every way they wanted because he was around. They couldn’t walk around wearing whatever or make out wherever or do whatever knowing they wouldn’t get caught. 

There was once he walked in on them when they thought he wasn’t home and found them well on their way to third base, which could only be described as bordering the line of sincerely traumatizing. Never had Armin been so sorry to see half a boob in his entire life. Talking that one out afterwards was… a mess. Eren had a magical way of opening his mouth and making things worse. He tried to twist it around and give Armin “the talk” instead of addressing what had happened. Like, the sex talk. Yes, horrible. Armin had to assure him that he already knew where babies came from. He was a virgin, not an idiot.

Anyway.

Despite the usual mortifications that came with living with a couple, there were benefits to it as well. Armin knew they loved him. They worked so hard at showing it, too.

One night, he’d gotten up to switch on the lamp at his bedside table and gone to hop off the bed when he stepped on something that made him cry out in surprise. It was Eren. 

“What are you doing?” he’d asked him. Eren bolted upright, blanket still around his shoulders. His hair was a mess. 

Armin couldn’t make out his reply. Groggy lips mumbled something, repeating what they said when he shook his head to indicate that he didn’t understand.

“I just wanted to sleep here tonight,” Eren said. He could barely keep his eyes open, the poor guy. “Sorry.”

“Why?”

“Make sure you’re alright. Just in case you need anything.”

Armin snorted at that. “You can sleep with me on the bed, you know. I don’t bite.”

Eren gave a smile that made him seem nearly entirely awake, even though it was so brief Armin wondered if he’d fallen asleep on the spot again after it vanished. Then he mumbled, “I know, little man. But you know how much it takes to wake me up.”

That he did. There was a moment of silence where Eren stared at Armin and he stared right back. A warmth of affection spread in him, and before he knew it, Armin was giggling in a way that made Eren chuckle, too.

“Well, I just have to pee,” he breathed. “I don’t think I need help this time.”

“Good,” Eren nodded. “Then, I’ll just—” and he laid back down and fell asleep on the carpet. Literally just like that.

Mikasa was the same. 

Sometimes, she’d stick by Armin’s side even when it kind of annoyed him. But he took pity on her—she was even more persistent than Eren. There would be times she’d be so tired after ballet, nodding off with her hand on his back or arm or leg, just clinging to him. Maybe she was doing exactly what Eren tried to do: keep him close to react to every need and stir from him. Armin would wake her up if she’d fall asleep, tell her that he didn’t need anything, that she could leave him and go to bed. But Mikasa always smiled and insisted. She’d tell him she didn’t mind. She wanted to stay with him.

One of the greatest comforts of a home is the safety that comes with predictability. The floors always creaked in certain spots and every chip on every dish was known to them. They knew which cups to use for what, which corners of the rooms were dustiest, which toilet flushed a little weird. There were the occasional strums of Eren’s guitar, sometimes Mikasa's soft singing, sometimes Armin’s little snores during his naps. There were times when Grandpa Arlert would visit, when Eren’s friends came over to hang out, when Mikasa caught up with fellow ballerinas over coffee on their porch. Armin even thought at one point that he had a crush on one of them, but he knew nobody would want to be with a boy who was sick. Who’d sign up for that kind of pain in their life? Eren and Mikasa suffered enough as it was; he didn’t even want to think of the anguish of watching him deteriorate right before their eyes. They often told him not to even think about that. But he still did. People who are sick always do that.

Eren and Mikasa did things to try to help him feel somewhat normal. It was often that they’d take walks in the forest right outside, that they’d go on tiny road trips to nowhere and just drive and drive while blasting songs they could all listen to, ones Armin knew so perfectly he could still sing along. Sometimes, he had to read Mikasa’s lips for guidance. But he always knew what verse to belt out, always knew when he sang so badly that his best friends were laughing.

Their home was everything it needed to be for Armin to grow, develop, and heal—for Mikasa and Eren to flourish. It was everything it should be. Everything people who’ve been stripped of safety needed to have.

But there were fights at times.

And a lot of them.

When Eren and Mikasa fought, Armin saw things in them he’d never seen before. Things he never wanted to see. 

It wasn't ever clear what their fights were about, and he couldn’t ever make them out, knowing they weren’t his to understand anyway. But there were instances when they were so bad that Armin could feel them screaming at each other, and he knew it was Eren that always did the shouting first. Mikasa wasn’t so easy to anger, but when she was furious, she was terrifying. She’d punish Eren in passive aggressive ways, give him the silent treatment—sometimes for days, sometimes even to Armin. Eren could be cruel when he wanted to be, and he often did. He’d say things he knew would hurt her. Armin had once caught him uttering profanities at her, which he knew Mikasa hated. She always hated it when he cursed, especially at her.

Eren had mood swings, manic spurts and then bouts of what looked like depression—which he usually tried to take care of on his own. But he would shut down and isolate himself to do it, which made Mikasa coddle, then made him irritated, then made her coddle even more, then, again, made them fight.

Sometimes, it would get scary. Once, Armin came home to find a plate shattered on the floor, Mikasa crying as she did the dishes. Eren was nowhere to be found. He’d asked what happened, and she’d said, “Nothing, sweetie. It’s alright.” Her entire face was pink and wet from crying.

There was another time when it was Eren he was worried about. He hadn’t come home for days, and when he finally showed up, he seemed so tired. Armin had hugged him, said he’d missed him, and he could feel the way that Eren cried in his arms. “Nothing, buddy. I’m fine,” was what he got when he asked what happened. They always said that when he’d ask what happened.

It affected Armin more than he knew it should. There were nights he’d cry about it, but he always hid his pain from them, knowing it would make them feel worse, fearing that it would make them fight more. He couldn’t understand how it was that their home could be so great and strong and yet feel so brittle at times, like it could crack right below their feet and give out the moment Eren and Mikasa would stop acting like they loved each other. Armin was too scared to lose them, to lose everything they had, so he’d try to pretend he never noticed, even when he knew that they always knew he did. They’d even try to hide their quarrels from him, going silent the moment he’d enter a room, sometimes even making up reluctantly just for the sake of him. But it was never enough. When they broke, Armin broke with them. Why did they even need to fight? They had everything. They had Armin. Wasn’t that enough?

It was one morning, though, that it got really bad. 

He was on the dining room table scribbling on his notepad when Mikasa came down and kissed the top of his head. She was in her usual sleepwear, one of Eren’s t-shirts and soccer shorts. And when she’d gone to make coffee, that’s when he’d seen it. 

A bruise on her arm.

Armin’s blood boiled with a sudden fervor that alarmed him, one he’d never felt in his entire life. His breath hitched with words that couldn’t come out, questions he didn’t even think to ask, cheeks burning so hot they felt like fire—and next thing he knew, he was on his feet and rushing through the house to where he knew that Eren was. 

He didn’t hear Mikasa asking for him, or whatever hello Eren said before he had his fists in his shirt and pushed him back against the wall with all his might. Eren was stronger than him, so strong Armin would’ve buckled into him from the force it took to push him if it weren’t for the resistance of the wall at his back.

Eren’s eyes were wide. “Armin, what the fuck?”

“You bastard!” he wailed. “You stupid bastard!”

“Armin—”

“What did you do to Mikasa?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You hit her!”

“What!?” 

“You fucking hit her!” Eren’s lips parted to speak but before he could say anything, Armin swung hard at his face. His fist met Eren’s cheek and he could feel him gasp by the swell in his chest, the way it heaved below his hands. 

There was stillness. Silence. They were all too shocked to act. 

When Eren’s head turned back to look at him, his cheek was red, eyes bright with what looked like both startle and rage. 

Then Armin was afraid.

Eren lunged forward and he flinched to anticipate the blow, but Mikasa yanked him back and threw herself between them.

“Don’t you dare!” she screamed, pushing Eren so hard he smacked onto the wall again. Armin was crying. She wrapped her arms around him, pressing him tight to her chest. He could feel the way she hardened, the ferocity in her when she hissed, “Don’t you dare touch him, Eren.”

That was the worst fight they’d ever had, and the only one that included Armin. He was certain, then, that he’d finally done it. He’d finally broken their home all by himself. He felt the rush of guilt, of shame, and then he did what he was best at doing. 

Armin ran away.

He trotted up the stairs faster than his body could carry him. He didn’t see how he left them, their shock and their worry and Eren’s question to Mikasa about what the hell that was about. She said she didn’t know. She didn’t know so many things when it came to Armin. 

Neither did he. 

He wished he could filter himself better, control himself better. He was so sensitive, such a burden, always hurt and always hurting those that loved him most. Armin couldn’t even blame that on his illness anymore. On their home. 

**—o—**

“Armin.”

He felt her before he could see her call his name. 

He’d been sitting on the porch for what felt like hours, a duvet wrapped around him as he glared out into the empty spaces in front of him. And when he felt Mikasa sit beside him, it took him a bit to muster the courage to meet her face.

And there she was. Worried. Like always.

“Armin,” she said again. “Why did you do that to Eren?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t want to. But she pressed on.

“Armin. Look at me, please.” She held his shoulder to capture his attention, and then asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I just want you to stop fighting,” he muttered quietly, the duvet falling from one of his scrawny shoulders. “I hate it when you fight. I hate it when you two yell at one another.”

“We don’t fight that often,” she said, as if that made it all less terrible. Armin pursed his lips and looked away. He closed his eyes to avoid reading her lips when she ran her fingers through his hair.

They stayed like that for a bit, her nails scratching his scalp lightly, a motherly affection that always comforted him ever since they were small. He opened his eyes when he felt her whisper, “Ar.”

“What?”

“Tell me what those stars are.”

They both looked up. The sky was such a deep ocean of shadows, some faint undertones of blue whispering behind all of the black. They saw the moon—a waxing crescent—and the flickers of light that peppered all around it. 

“Well,” he started. He didn’t see how Mikasa smiled when his pointer finger reached out to the sky. “That one. Ursa Major.”

“You sure it has no minor?” she snorted softly, referring to Eren’s shitty perpetual joke that the constellation had to have a little sibling with a name like that.

Armin simpered, but didn’t answer. They looked back up again, two little bodies covered in duvets, miniscule entities amid the big infinity of outer space.

“That one,” he said, finger pointing at another corner in the sky. “It’s Orion's Belt.”

“You sure it’s not Onion Belt?”

This time, Armin actually laughed. “Eren shouldn’t be allowed near a single astronomer in his lifetime.”

Mikasa nodded softly. “I’d have to agree with that.”

They were silent for a small while. Mikasa’s head fell to Armin’s shoulder. She closed her eyes when his head tilted to rest above hers.

“You should apologize to him,” she said eventually, as he knew she would. “You know he’d never do that to me. He never will, and he never has.”

“I know,” Armin sighed. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“It happens. Eren will forgive you, though.” And it was true. Eren always did. “Plus,” Mikasa added, a smile back on her face, “You don’t think I could take his ass?”

Armin laughed again, and this time, Mikasa laughed with him.

“No, you could take his ass,” he said. “Remember when you almost gave him a concussion while play-wrestling in middle school?”

“He should’ve never tried me.”

“Your mother grounded you for nearly a month.”

“I know. First time I ever got into big trouble, but it was worth it. Taught him a lesson.” 

Armin hummed, glancing down at his hands when Mikasa took them in her own to bring them to her mouth. She blew hotly into them, keeping them warm.

“I feel like something big is going to happen,” Armin said suddenly. 

Mikasa’s eyes rose to his face. She blinked. “Like what?”

“I’m not sure,” he breathed, his eyebrows scrunching together. “I… I just don’t know.”

The girl sighed. “Well, the surgery is a huge thing.”

“No,” Armin shook his head. “Not that.”

Silence followed. It lingered for a large chunk of time.

As she waited for Armin to speak again, Mikasa’s mind wandered. It went to her parents, to their lives, to how they left this world. She didn’t want that for Armin. His life was still so fresh, so young, and he harbored dreams that still needed to be fed and lived and accomplished.

He needed to live.

“Armin,” she voiced finally, breaking their trance. “Would you like to go to the beach before surgery?”

Blue eyes flared wide. “Yeah?”

“Why not?”

“I would love that!”

Mikasa smiled at excitement. “Well, then. I’ll tell Eren when he gets back from work.”

So when he returned, she told him.

He was ridding himself of his clothes, about to hop into the shower when she brought it up. And when she did, he smiled and pulled at her arm to bring her closer.

“Eren,” Mikasa breathed, stumbling on her feet and nearly tripping into him. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” she whined, dodging his kisses. “Armin.”

“What about him?”

“He’s here.”

“What, you’re scared he’ll hear us?”

She pinched his bicep, making him wince as she pulled in closer to hiss, “One more ‘Armin is deaf joke’ out of you and you’re really gonna get it.”

Eren grinned. “You’re so sexy when you threaten me.” 

“Stop it.”

He kissed her little pout, the skin between her eyebrows. His hands cradled her face. Mikasa closed her eyes at the way he held her, how the tips of his palms and fingers grazed the places where she ended, where her skin met his and he pulled her in to blend with him.

“Eren,” she mumbled into their kiss.

“Hmm?”

“Did Armin apologize?”

“Yep.”

“Did you forgive him?”

“Of course.”

“Good.”

Hazy with surrender, she gave in and delved in to kiss him harder, tasting his little chuckle at her sudden fervor. Eren tasted the way he always did. Ancient. Like a relic.

His fingers slipped beneath her shirt, the fabric rucking up behind his hands as they lifted to cup both her breasts. His palms were warm against her, thumbs rubbing small circles on her skin in a way that made her lashes flutter shut.

“Mik,” Eren whispered against her lips. “Miki?”

“Huh?”

“Let’s start a family.”

“What? You mean now, Eren?”

“Right now,” he smiled, little dimple going in. He moved his hands to grip her waist, where he held her gently and whispered, “Let’s make a baby.”

“God,” Mikasa laughed. “You’re so forward.”

“I’m serious.”

“But we _have_ a family,” she told him, tracing the muscle along the center of his chest. She caught the tiny glint on her ring finger, the chaste band Eren had found for her as a promise ring.

A promise.

To stay. To always be together.

“Eren,” she sighed at his little frown. “We have Armin, and each other. We have a family already.”

“I know,” he said. “But…”

“But what?”

“But I want more.”

More. Mikasa balked at the thought, the idea of wanting that. 

She gave a small smile that Eren was quick to capture with his again, but the gesture alone was not enough to ward off the sudden pang in her chest, one that felt sharp. Like a warning. 

Her eyes opened. Eren was still kissing her.

_More._

Were they even allowed to want that? Ever since her parents’ death, Mikasa had been living off the crumbs of life, forcing satisfaction out of scraps of joy she was given here and there. And lately, she had enough scraps to mold them together into entire pieces. This home, their home. They’d made it together. They had so much. They had _enough._

Would God forgive her if she asked for more than that? And why wouldn’t He?

Suddenly, she heard Armin’s voice. 

_“I feel like something big is going to happen soon.”_

What, she thought. What’s going to happen?

“Let’s do it,” she decided then, pecking Eren on the cheek. “Let’s make a baby.”

His laugh was breathy and glorious, and he dove to pick her up in his arms, grunting as he carried her. Away, and away, and away, Mikasa let him take her until everything was so far behind them that all she could conceptualize was him, them, the firmness of all that was rooted deep within them: the promises, the risks. The courage to make both.

Mikasa felt so brave, so daring. So she asked for more from God, for just another scrap. Another crumb. Another piece to mold together. Could she just do that?

**—o—**

The day before surgery finally arrived. Even the air was different that morning, even the sun seemed to be shy.

It was a gloomy day, certainly not one to celebrate. Regardless, Armin was teeming with bright, pulsing excitement. This surgery would either keep or cease his existence in this world. It would either be the catalyst for more, or the cork that clogged the flow of everything. It’d allow more science, more research, more wonders to unveil in his brilliant mind, or stop all of it.

Eren drove. Mikasa told him she’d be the designated passenger, just to make sure he didn’t get them lost, which left Armin to jump into the backseat, where he slid into the space between them and hopped around.

“I’m so pumped!” he squeaked.

Eren smirked, but said nothing.

“Armin, put on your seatbelt,” Mikasa chided softly.

He didn’t hear.

They coursed through a mirage of trees and cracked roads, curved streets and vast highways, all the while listening to Armin chatter about the beach. Eren felt bad that this day had to be so gray, because for all he knew, it could be Armin’s last visit to the ocean, the last time he’d get to sink his bare feet in the sand.

Music boomed from the car speakers loud enough for Armin to feel the vibrations. Eren saw him bob his head through the rearview mirror. His eyes went back on the road ahead, knuckles turning white from how hard he gripped the steering wheel. He was nervous, suddenly. He didn’t know why. GPS said they were almost there, just ten more minutes and they would be there.

Just ten more minutes.

And yet, Mikasa had to turn around.

She had to turn around and say, “Armin, your seatbelt!”

And he had to say, “What?”

And Eren had to look.

He just had to look.

Before everything broke with a jarring, crashing boom that sliced the music apart, screeching tires puncturing the chorus and shattered glass crescendoing with a mighty blow of metal that clanged and banged together.

The silence that followed was the most haunting noise of all.

It swallowed everything, leaving a driver to scream in terror at what he’d caused—but all for naught, for there were no ears to hear him.

**—o—**

It hurt to breathe.

Eren gasped, his eyes blowing wide open, bursted capillaries discordant red against dilated tints of green and blue, colors that should never come together.

Blinking, he jostled awake from the darkness that had sucked him in for minutes, hours—he did not know. 

Everything was garbled, even the air felt coagulated and too thick to breathe. His ears rang. He could taste blood in his mouth. He coughed it out, feeling a crushing weight on his chest, his muscles.

Everything stung.

Eren groaned at the pain. It wasn’t until his eyes could focus enough that he began to process what just happened. 

They were in an accident. 

A bad one. 

His brain was too shot to gauge the entirety of it, so he guided it thought by thought, breath by breath, amazed that he was still breathing, that his lungs didn’t explode inside his chest from the impact. Nothing in him did.

He saw shattered glass, a giant hole blown right through the middle of the windshield. It almost blasted off all of it. The world outside of it was extremely still, so dauntingly quiet. Eren didn’t know how long it took him to move, to think, to feel anything but so much pain it vanished to a sudden numbness, but then a quiet moan beside him spurred him to full consciousness.

Mikasa.

He snapped his head around to look at her. Her body was limp beside his, her seatbelt the only thing that held it up. Blood fell from a large gash on her cheekbone. It stretched all the way to below her right eye, staining the pallid skin of her cheek with a red so intense it was disgusting. It fell down her face to her neck, ruining her clothes. Her hands were turned skyward, as if pleading to God.

What God?

Eren sprang free of the wreckage.

Somehow, he managed to move. He didn’t notice that his chest bled, cut open by the seat belt, that there were shards of glass still in him, digging deeper as he moved. How he got out of the vehicle was a mystery to him. His legs were too weak to hold him, and he crumbled to his knees the moment he made it out. But he managed to make it to Mikasa, vision so blurred he could hardly recognize what he was even looking at. But Eren knew it was her. That red scarf only belonged to one person. 

Words spewed from his mouth but never reached his ears. He felt himself speaking, yelling, asking her questions but she was unresponsive, just sitting there like a flaccid doll.

Eren was too shocked to cry.

He tore through to her and began to undo her seatbelt. It wouldn’t budge. There was an urgency to his motions, one that defied all physical logic as to how he could even move, still move. The fight in him was almost animalistic. Even now. He kept fighting and fighting. Pushing against.

It killed him to see Mikasa like this. He couldn’t understand what was happening. And yet somehow, somehow, he got her out. He carried her through the window and propped her up into his arms.

“Mik,” he could barely utter, words and pants rasping through the raw ache in his throat. “Mikasa, can you hear me?”

A groan.

It came from somewhere in the distance.

Eren gazed around, his heartbeat in his eardrums. Every inch of him flared in scathing, piercing pain. He grimaced and cried out at the sudden awareness, the way he felt it all at once. One by one, his senses came alive again. He heard the groan again, smelled the stench of exhaust and blood. His blood. Mikasa’s blood. As his eyes dug around his surroundings, he saw the crushed vehicle he had been driving only moments ago. It looked so chewed up—how did he come out of that? Some yards away, another vehicle was stalled on the corner of the road. No life. No motion.

Another groan. Softer.

Eren gasped.

“Armin!” he screamed, hoisting Mikasa on his back. “Armin? Armin, please God, where are you?”

He was frantic, so frantic that he could still push, still resist, still rip through the ache in his legs, his knees, his arms, and walk. “God, please… _”_ He carried Mikasa. “Armin!” She was limp on his back. “Fuck, please. Armin!”

Then he found him.

His body laid bent on the side of the road, perfectly still upon a bed of icy grass. Eren walked as fast as his legs would carry him without dropping Mikasa. His chest felt like it was on the brink of bursting open; his body hurt so bad he couldn’t feel it anymore. He ran and staggered and laid Mikasa on the grass beside them to crouch down, his hands reaching out to his little friend, his best friend, his Armin.

It was then that he saw the gash on his own palm.

His entire palm bled. Dark crimson—almost black. He couldn’t even feel any pain, overwhelmed by all the colors that assailed his senses: the white of the snow, speckled grey of ice, red and green and blue and every shade of ruined clothing. 

How did he get that gash? It didn’t matter. Because when he looked at Armin again, he saw a gash just like it torn across his flaxen head.

Eren fell to his knees.

“Armin,” he sobbed, collecting him in his arms. “Armin. Armin, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

His blue eyes were misty and obscure, staring off into the sky.

“Eren?” he smiled. How could he do that? How could he smile? “Can you see it?”

Eren stared at him, at the blood that crept over every visible surface of his body, and he realized that he’d been catapulted through the windshield from the impact. That’s what that giant hole was.

His body.

“What?” Eren’s chest was so ragged with breaths that they nearly stopped coming. “What are you saying?”

“The beach,” Armin whispered, trembling in his arms. He felt so light, so cold. “I see it.”

Eren’s eyes glazed over with tears. He couldn’t think of what to do. He wanted to wake up, let it end, but there was no jostling awake, no sigh of relief at merely dreaming. The nightmare was happening and it was real.

“Armin….”

“I love the beach,” he said, his frail voice cracking. “I love it so much.”

“I know,” Eren started crying. Tears burned every cut on his face. “I know, Ar.”

“I’m—” A jolt coursed through his thin body. Armin winced, screwing his eyes shut.

“Shhh,” Eren held him like a baby, caressing the bloody side of his head. He didn’t know whose blood was whose anymore, didn’t know where his wounds ended and Armin’s began.

Suddenly, his friend went still.

“Armin?”

No response.

“Armin!”

Nothing.

In the haunting silence, Eren began to hear a voice. It was his mother’s.

“Mom,” he gasped, he begged. “Make it stop. Please, please, Mommy, make it stop. It hurts. Make it stop.”

Make it stop.

Make it stop.

_Make it stop._

He felt warmth. He didn’t know if it was death coming for him—he wished with everything in him that it was. But it faded to something gentle, a touch that shrouded him. That whispered.

Eren. 

_It’s okay._

And when he gazed down at the lifeless body in his hands, the shock was so great that he could not breathe, could not see, could not function. Everything sucked itself into utter darkness. Eren could feel himself wailing, cradling Armin so close his body jolted with his screams. He cried so much, so hard, expelled the last ounce of his energy so that when he fainted, when his eyes rolled back and his body fell limply onto the ground, they all laid broken on the bloody grass, a lifetime of friendship scattered frigidly among the wreckage. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, to end like this. They were so close. So close.

Just ten more minutes.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't know what to say i'm sorry i didn't even want to do an author's note at the end but i--miraculously--have more to say.
> 
> first of all, please forgive any possible brevity, clumsy pacing, etc. in this chapter. i wrote so much of it from scratch in one day. as in, today. i think i pumped out like 3k words this morning in 2 hours then spent the next 2-3 hours editing by myself. there is mush where my brain should be. and i apologize for the lateness--crazy week at work.
> 
> second, i simply want to thank all of you for the love you give this story. i say this all the time, but last chapter garnered nearly *130* kudos in a single week. that blows my fucking mind. like, genuinely, i have no words. you honestly have no idea what that means to me.
> 
> i appreciate you and thank you and will end this here. next chapter means a lot to me, and hopefully it makes up for today.
> 
> see you next week,  
> nati ❤️


	31. My Aphrodite of Melos

She’s the soothing hand at the base of his neck, the anchor that holds him still. The fingers that drift from his nose to his eyebrow and press the antiseptic-doused cotton pad to his bloody cuts, making him hiss and jump.

She’s a sigh.

“Hold still.”

Her eyes are scrunched with focus, fixed on her hands working at his wounds. A line of hair falls over her face, its end clinging to the lips she’s got pursed tight in concentration. She looks so pretty, taking all his ugly bits and softening them, reminding him that there is redemption after all.

Mikasa pulls the cotton pad from his face and drops it onto the end table beside them, where the rest of the bloody wads are all scattered and crumpled up. She goes to repeat her regimen, to press another pad to the cut on his lip, but something stops her then. Eren stops her.

“Hey,” he says. “You alright?”

It’s a whisper. “I’m fine, Eren.” 

He’s sitting across from her, bare chest lined with splotches of purple and blue. She’d watched him slide his shirt off over his head in the bathroom, his faint winces at the soreness and pain. When Mikasa saw the bruises on him, the dried up blood on his neck and shirt, she had to look away, choking back tears she didn’t want him to catch spilling. 

There is so much that needs to be said. Too much. 

And so, they say nothing. And so, Mikasa rubs her sleepless eyes and Eren closes his, imagining her motions, drawing them out in his mind before another hiss steals his lips and she’s saving him again.

“Fuck, that hurts.”

Mikasa hums quietly. “This one’s bad,” she says, cleaning blood off the lesion on his right temple. “I’m surprised you don’t need stitches. If he’d hit you harder, you’d be getting sewn up right now.” 

Eren snorts. “Welp. Thank God for that.”

“It’s going to scar, though.”

“Sweet. More for the collection.”

“That’s not funny, Eren.”

“No, really. I’ve _always_ wanted a scar there.” 

Mikasa’s awfully quiet at that. Eren’s not sure if her scowl is directed at him or the wound. 

After some time, she pulls away to douse a couple of more pads in antiseptic. She’s so intent on being perfect about it, cleaning every tiny cut on him to make sure they all heal right. Her fingertips are stained a little red, and for a moment, Eren wonders what it is. But then he realizes. It’s his blood.

She doesn’t complain about it—his blood on her, his eyes on her. She swipes her fringe off her face with her wrist, and she’s so beautiful. Parts of her mirror him, too: the bruises on her body, his blood on her hands. She’s just as messy, busted, vulnerable as him. But so beautiful.

Sighing, Eren closes his eyes. He listens to her breathing, feels his own. 

His apartment is so quiet, save for the soft thrums of the city outside as it lulls to the quieter hours of approaching morning. From where he sits, Eren can hear the ringing of voices, some small conversations, cars honking and tires crunching over snow. Winter is soon to end, and yet white still clothes everything, clinging stubbornly to every surface and refusing to let go. 

Some moments later, when his cuts are all clean and his eyes are still shut, Mikasa stands in front of him and studies his face. His gaze is taken from her and she wants it back, so she lifts her hand and presses it flat to the center of his chest, startling him.

Eren’s eyes flare open.

“Mikasa?”

“Armin,” she says, holding her hand above his heart. It’s so small amid the center of him, a pallid little palm pressed to his old scars. “Remember when he used to do this?”

Eren holds a hand over hers, tracing the shapes of her knuckles with his fingertips. “Yeah,” he says. “Still alive, right?”

She nods. “Still alive.”

There’s silence.

Then music coming from Hitch’s apartment, a steady bass dropping again and again. It’s most definitely too late at night to be playing music this loudly, but Eren’s not surprised when Ymir’s sudden shout breaks over the cacophony. Of course, it’s her. 

Mikasa ignores the muffled ruckus. She’s still staring at their hands adjoined over his chest. 

“I loved him,” she whispers suddenly. “I loved him so very much.”

Guilt shadows the corners of Eren’s face. Something in him hurts deeply. He whispers back, “I’m sorry.”

Mikasa frowns. “For what?”

“For everything. For your mom, your dad. Armin.”

“Eren—”

“I’m sorry that you’re so lonely. I can’t help feeling that if you had them, you wouldn’t need this mess anymore.”

The girl laughs, a tiny giggle that surprises him. 

“No,” she tells him then, pulling her hand from his chest. “How little you know, Eren.”

He opens his mouth but he has nothing to say, so he watches her for a moment. Watches her watch him. Her cheeks turn all soft and rosy, and he’d be smiling at her sudden blush if it wasn’t for how fucking bad his lip hurts. He must’ve been staring for too long, though, because Mikasa curls away suddenly, sheepishly casting her gaze to the side.

He wants to kiss her.

The impulse reminds him of what they did only two days ago, of what’s left them both like this. Remnants of him still litter her skin, hickeys that are slow to fade. He can see some still on her neck, and he swallows at what looks like the beginnings of new ones, knowing for certain that those aren’t from him. And they remind him: he is wrong for feeling what he does.

“He didn’t want to do it, you know,” he says. Mikasa meets his gaze, slightly taken aback by his comment. 

“What?”

“Jean. That’s why he held back. He didn’t want to fight me.”

Mikasa purses her lips, glaring at the blood under her fingernails. “But he still did.”

Eren sighs. “I mean, honestly, Mik? If some guy made out with my fiancée, I’d beat the shit out of him too.” Her eyes are back on him. He scoffs, “Oh, but he’d need stitches.”

Mikasa laughs at that, much to Eren’s satisfaction. 

“Is that why you didn’t fight back?” she asks him, nodding her head to the side when he looks at her for clarification. “Jean. Did you fight him back?”

Eren smirks. “Of course, I did.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Hm. Funny, because I didn’t see a single scratch on him when he came home.”

That silences him. Mikasa waits for a response, but he has none. So she asks, “Why didn’t you fight back, Eren?”

Silence, still.

She tips her head sideways, searching his face. “Ah, so now we’re quiet.”

Eren sighs. “I don’t know what to say, Mikasa.”

“Well,” she whispers, a small smile curving her lips. “That’s a first.”

Slowly, his eyes go to her. This time, neither of them breaks away. 

She’s staring back, her gaze all soft on him, on all he is. She’s always seen straight through the gore, through the blood and wounds and violence to the kindness that’s inside, reminding him of his humanity. That he still has one in the end. 

The petals of her mouth drift apart, and she seems like she’s about to say something. But nothing comes out. Just her exhale, the way her chest sinks. Her eyelids flicker, and she swipes a lock of hair behind her ear, cheeks still pink but no part of her is shy now. Eren sees the way her eyes drop to his lips, to the cut he has there, and she’s not treating him anymore; there's no excuse for them to be like this. Still, they linger, and something visceral in him wants to burst awake, a timeless blaze that longs to be rekindled. She’s too serious on him, and it’s the same look she’d given him two days ago when he had her in his mouth. 

With a sharp inhale, Eren rips his gaze away.

“Yeah, well,” he breathes. “We should go to bed.” 

Mikasa nods without objection. “Let’s.”

And so he gives her one of his t-shirts and boxers to sleep in.

And so he gives her his home, his bed, and lays down on the couch to rest.

And so he waits until the light in his room has gone away, until darkness settles in his apartment and he’s left alone with a hand pressed to the center of his chest, his fingers tracing where Mikasa’s hand had been, the only part of him that doesn’t physically hurt right now. He laughs quietly because he knows that despite the burn on his face and body, despite the cuts and the blood and the pain and the cold, he’s—

“Still alive.”

**—o—**

Living together again felt somewhat odd, yet utterly familiar. 

They were respectful, and as Mikasa’s hickeys faded and Eren’s cuts slowly healed, the bond between them grew tentatively, budding shily between glances and peeks. 

Their first morning together, as he read and she washed the dishes, cleaning up after their breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes (which she’d practically begged for him to get up early to prep for her), they’d exchange glances, nuances of time that stood still.

Eren’s eyes rose from the pages of his book to find her, something they did often throughout the day. All the way from the living room where he lounged on the couch, he watched the way she cleaned, with such determined concentration that it seemed her mind was cleared, as if she were busying herself to not allow a single thought to enter it. Eren was wondering whether she did this regularly in her own home when her eyes suddenly met him and his spirit jumped and he went back to reading, turning a page as if nothing had happened at all.

The first few days were like that.

It took Mikasa a bit to be louder in her presence. For some time, she sort of just whispered her way around the apartment, as if needing permission, reassurance, Eren didn’t know what, to be felt. And she’s the kind of person that comes out of herself in her own time, when she’s ready. So Eren gave her space, company when she needed it. She was never one to ask for much.

It was on her second or third day there that the girls came over to spend time together, and they’d gone into his bedroom to paint their nails or do whatever girly things they liked to subject Mikasa to. When he’d gone in to use the restroom, Eren was kicked out the moment he’d stepped in through the door. 

It was Sasha that stopped him.

She’d perked up, gasping. “Eren, freeze!” 

He stopped, blinking at her. “What?”

“What do you think you’re doing? This is strictly a girls-only-zone. Leave, please.”

His eyes widened. “But I’m—”

“Leave, bro.” Ymir huffed, her face half-covered with some gross, goopy-looking face mask. 

“But—”

“Listen, you blue eyed boy wonder—”

“—What did you just call me?—”

“—absolutely no men allowed in here. Only girls and gays. Non debatable. Get out.” 

He was genuinely gaping. His eyes went to Mikasa, and she gave a little smirk.

“You heard her,” she said.

The girls giggled quietly.

And with that, Eren did as he was instructed. Annie must’ve noticed the shocked look on his face when the door fell shut behind him, because she broke away from her Call of Duty match to ask, “What happened?”

And Eren explained, “I was just kicked out of my own room.”

And Reiner scoffed, his fingers twiddling away on the Xbox controller in his hands. Then he’d said, “She owns this place now, man.”

And so it went.

It didn’t take much after that for Mikasa to be felt completely. Remnants of her would cling to things, and Eren would find black strands of her hair on his furniture, sometimes even his clothes—once, tragically enough, in his sandwich. His blankets smelled of her when she would sleep in them. Tiny lip marks would stay on his mugs when she’d finish using them. Some things even multiplied. Her little toothbrush perched itself beside his, her boots stood next to his by the door, he had to make two cups of coffee in the mornings. It was so odd to see how singulars now came in pairings. 

Chocolate. God, did they go through so much fucking chocolate.

There were things that were very endearing about Mikasa, and Eren marveled at every single one—like how she’d tilt her head all the way back to knock down the very last bit of her hot chocolate, the times he’d find her singing to herself while braiding her hair, or when he’d hear faint thumps on the floor and catch her finishing lazy little pirouettes she’d do out of boredom. 

He liked the way she said things, did things, how she took the time to savor every bite of her food. Being around her so much helped him notice things in her he’d spent the last couple of months trying so frantically to find. They were all still there, still right in front of him, all his favorite ancient bits of her but all the ones that annoyed him too.

Mikasa, despite all her benevolence and virtue, can be incredibly stubborn when she wants to be.

Their first argument was over bleach. She grilled his ass because he didn’t own any, something to do with cleaning or whatever the fuck. The second was over his habit of throwing his clothes all over the place before showering—and that was after she chided him for eating half a tub of ice cream for dinner that night. The third, he can’t honestly remember. But they were all dumb.

Her cleaning nearly cost him his life once. Eren came prancing into his home only to skid with a loud squeak of his shoes against the floor, crying out in surprise and saving himself from falling straight onto his ass by nothing short of a miracle. Mikasa didn’t hold back her tiny giggles at that, and he didn’t fail to glare at her. 

She’d insist on the most bewildering things, determined to watch movies together even though she’d always fall asleep just twenty minutes in. She’d try to stay up late with him when she’s never made it past midnight a day in her life. She’d wake up at the ass crack of dawn with more energy than is humanly possible and drag him out of bed so that he’d keep her company through breakfast, even if all he did eventually was nod off. But these things were important to her. It took Eren a long while to understand why.

Eventually, Mikasa stopped cleaning. Because one day, as she scrubbed a plate clean, Eren caught her crying. Her nose was pink and her face tightened in the way it always did when she held back tears, when she tried to be stronger than was necessary. She was so lost in her own head, she didn’t feel him there until he touched her. He grazed the wet backs of her hands with his own before capturing them. 

“Please, stop,” he told her, her startled back to his chest. He’d felt her sigh, her spine at his heart, and released her. It only took some short days for the dust to accumulate in his apartment again.

In the same way that Eren learned how to live with her again, Mikasa familiarized herself with all the different ways that he existed—old and new alike.

She had no idea, but a lot of the art on his walls was done by him—and so were many of the paintings in Hitch and Sasha’s apartments so that Mikasa got to capture extra glimpses of him wherever she went. 

Through the years, he’d gotten better, learned to blend colors in a fashion that made them seem more awake, learned to wisp out paint so that it looked so faint it seemed to sigh in the way it all came together. Mikasa had always loved that, how his intensity passed onto something soft in his creations, how his art always held the most tender parts of him that went unknown and unexpressed. 

Eren never told her that the paintings were all his. But one day, while he was gone for work and she was all alone in his apartment, she’d traced her fingertips over every grain and ridge of color, acrylic and oil and watercolor alike, and she’d closed her eyes to map out the motions in her mind, his every conscientious smear and brushstroke. She only knew one pair of hands that held the world like that. And they were Eren’s.

She saw how he was with each of his friends, the way they all protected and loved him. Reiner and him had conversations that were drawn out, often dappled with hearty laughter, often accompanied by cheap beer. Hitch knew how to set him straight, which was fascinating to watch. Ymir constantly picked on him, and he knew how to shoot right back, but she was often too quick and too witty for him to keep up—and when she’d hang out with him and the rest of the guys, she regularly reminded them that she could kick all their asses. And she could.

Sasha was like a little sister to him, and she’d often be annoyed at him for his overprotectiveness of her, how he regularly scolded her for doing things he deemed reckless. She’d often stop by the early mornings he had to get up to work, providing breakfast he munched on sleepily while she picked out his clothes for the day and even brushed his hair. Mikasa was amazed that he’d let her do that. Lord knows he never let Carla or even herself try at that.

The true magic was when they were all together, the stories they’d reiterate to Mikasa when she joined in, which usually included ridiculing Eren. They’d told her of the time they all got into a bar fight with like seven other guys because one of them called Ymir homophobic slurs and Eren’s fist is perpetually trigger happy. The one time Reiner carried him bridal style to the nearest hospital when he sprained his ankle slipping on snow (something they were all still bewildered at how he managed to accomplish). The one time he got banned from a local ice cream shop because a woman was harassing Hitch about her nipples apparently poking through her shirt because her teenage children could see them, and Eren had looked at her and said “Oh, no. God forbid they have any.” Reported to the manager. Banned on the spot.

If there was one thing they all had, it was stories. Years and years worth of stories. Years and years of their love and care and time for Eren.

It was comforting to see. To see Ymir run laps around the guys when they’d get tired during their runs. To see Sasha fall asleep on Eren’s shoulder while playing board games so that he couldn’t move in fear of waking her and had to pass his cards around to set them down. To see Annie, when she’d come over, talk to him with earnestness and sincerity; to see her engage with the rest of the group and how they all loved and respected her, too. 

When Mikasa had seen her again, they’d stood silently for a moment, Eren lost somewhere in the apartment so that it was just the two of them.

“Hey,” Annie had said.

“Hey,” Mikasa had said.

They were serious. They wanted to say more, acknowledge the fact that they were all here because of her, all the things she’d told Mikasa, all the things that brought them here. But after a few seconds, all Mikasa said was, “I’m just on my way to get something to drink.”

Annie nodded. “Sure.”

“Do you want to come?”

“Sure.”

And they both smiled. And they both laughed. And Eren found them chatting away in the kitchen, him looking equally terrified as he was amused. 

The rest of the gang was like that. They watched her. They watched them.

Mikasa suspected that they knew, that they saw the way Eren and her were with one another. They never said anything about it, but she caught how they stared whenever they’d address each other, the smiles on their faces when she came into the room and he perked up. How, once, when they they all came over on a weekend, Eren played _Can’t Help Falling in Love_ by Elvis Presley on the guitar with them all huddled around together, Historia singing before they’d all joined in on the final chorus, holding beer bottles as microphones and belting out together so loudly Mikasa had jumped from the startle and nearly dropped the hot chocolate in her hands. 

She’d smiled at Eren from across the room while they were laughing at Ymir’s beatboxing to finish it all off. Then his eyes went to her, and he’d smiled back, faint so that his dimple dented in just a little bit. Mikasa tried not to giggle when Sasha grinned and Hitch peered at him over the rim of her glasses, and his face fell to a glare once he caught them looking at him like that. 

Every day, there was something. Every day—laughter, stories, noise and song. Every day, a home thrumming with life and activity.

The weeks rolled by, and Mikasa’s wedding day drew nearer. She remembered this each time her eyes went on the ring around her finger. And yet, she never felt anything at the thought. Being with Eren made time simply not matter. The world resumed its incessant pirouette, and yet everything within the confines of his apartment remained timeless, frozen forever in place. The only notion of time she perceived was the fading of her hickeys and the healing process of his wounds. They were scabs on the day she found him scribbling intently on a notebook.

“Whatcha doing?” she’d inquired, only to be met with a tiny smile and nothing more.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Wearing Eren’s clothes quickly became tedious. They were far too large for her body, and she’d seen him snicker at her appearance more than once already, which had earned him an arm-punch or two. And so, Sasha and Hitch got together to arrange a luggage of clothing for her, which she vehemently thanked them for. Hitch’s tops were, of course, so tight Mikasa threw cardigans over herself to retain some ounce of decency, and Sasha gave her dresses she herself still wore in winter. Imagine that.

They visited her often, the girls. They did what they could to include and take care of her. But most of the time, Mikasa just wanted to be with Eren.

Even when there was nothing to do or to say, she chose him. 

Sometimes, she hid away in his bedroom and occupied herself with trying to find his notebook, the one he spent so much time scribbling and drawing on. It never worked, for he had it cleverly hidden. One day, after giving up, she’d read one of his old books and napped on his bed. 

She’d woken up that evening to the sound of the shower running in his bathroom. All the people had gone, it was just the two of them there. The sun was setting outside, breathing whispers of red and pink across the sky, when she rose and rubbed at her sleepy eyelids, opening them to find it.

The notebook.

It was right there, right in front of her, splayed open on his desk. She rubbed her eyes again and giggled quietly at the coincidence. Then, after sparing a glance to the bathroom, she rose and walked, reaching out for its wrinkled pages. 

Upon grasping the notebook, her eyes were captivated by what it held within. She was careful as she turned each sacred page, afraid to ruin or tear. She gasped at the first image that she found.

It was her.

It was her cleaning, her eyes deeply focused on the task at hand. Mikasa wrinkled her nose the same way she did in the drawing and marveled at how Eren managed to capture all of her smallest details, from the arches of her brows to the notches of her hands. She turned the page, then the other, then the other, until she was frantically flipping through them and her flattered expression grew bemused.

Her sense of reality must’ve escaped her, because when Eren suddenly asked, “What are you doing?” she jumped, startled, and nearly dropped the notebook in her hands.

He stood with a towel draped around his hips, his scars glistening with moisture. His hair was damp, pushed back away from his face save for a single tendril that fell over his eyes. 

Mikasa blinked.

“They’re all me.” 

He was silent.

“The drawings. They’re all me.”

“I’m sorry,” was all he could think to say.

Suddenly, Mikasa began to laugh. His face fell, but she was quick to assure that she wasn’t laughing at him. She held out his latest drawing, the one he’d just finished before showering, and said, “Is this really what I look like when I’m asleep?”

Eren smirked. “Yeah, Mik. You blow spit bubbles in your sleep.”

Mikasa smiled. “I thought the worst I did was snore.”

They laughed together, the tension clearing. And then Eren came close, explaining his drawings out in detail when she asked him to, going over the different techniques he’d used. Mikasa had asked if she could keep some of the drawings, which he’d seemed sad to part with but agreed that she could all the same. And he stood so close, so close that she could feel the heat of his shower on her drowsy skin, so close she could smell the minty shampoo he’d used, so close his breath stole across her cheeks when he turned his head to ask if she’d leave so he could get dressed.

They were a flushed, clumsy mess.

Mikasa snorts as she reminisces, remembering that night that feels as if it was so long ago. Everything feels as if it was so long ago. How much time has she been living with Eren? A week? Two? More? She’s not sure, and it doesn't really matter. 

He’s sleeping right now.

Her eyes are tired of scouring his drawings, of reading his books. So she decides to go to bed. She crawls under the blankets, breathes in the smell of him on the sheets, a smell she’s yet to replace with her own. But she can’t sleep, for her mind wanders. And so, rising, Mikasa traipses over to the living room and finds him there, snoring quietly with a book splayed open on his chest and reading glasses still on his face. 

Once she’s beside him, she kneels and, very gently, lifts the book off of him. Placing it aside, Mikasa watches him breathe, making sure not a single breath stirs and she wakes him. Her fingers reach to pluck the glasses from over his eyes, swiping his hair away from his face so she can get a better look of him. And then, carefully, she pushes her hair behind her ears and drops her head to his chest. 

Closing her eyes, she listens.

Slowly, slowly, the noises come.

_Ba-dump…_

_Ba-dump…_

_Ba-dump…_

His chest reverberates, a mighty drum, and Mikasa feels the warmth trickling in, the peace, the joy she’s enriched with every single night, for this is a routine she always follows. Listening to his heartbeat, absorbing every pound and staccato, she harbors it close to her own chest, carries it off to bed so that he’s accompanying her somehow. With his heart still in her ears, she imagines his arms coiled around her, holding her to the world. The link between them grows ever stronger, for they are rooms apart, and yet never worlds away. She carries him in her. Carries him so close.

And he does not even know.

**—o—**

“Guys. Positions.”

“Whoo!”

“Who starts?”

“Hitch, duh.”

“Cowgirl. All the way.”

“Nice.”

“Next! Ymir.”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“No?”

“Okay, well. Pegging.”

“That’s not a position.”

“It is when you’re a power bottom.”

“WHAT!”

“Nice. Sasha?”

“Virgin.”

“No, she’s lying.”

“Sash, be honest.”

“Wait. Sasha, you’re not a virgin anymore?”

“Eren, you can’t just ask her that.”

“No, wait. You’re not a virgin?”

“Dude—”

“Who was it?”

“Eren, no.”

“No, seriously. Who was it?”

“I’m not telling.”

“Why?”

“I don’t need you trying to beat up people again.”

“I won’t beat anyone up.”

“You said that last time.”

“Sasha, who was it?”

“Eren! Stop.”

“Were they respectful? Did they ask for consent?” 

“Oh, my god.”

“Tell me they took care of you.” 

“Damn, what a feminist.”

“Feminists can get it.”

“Is that why you get so much ass, bro?”

“Eren doesn’t get ass.”

“Thanks, Hitch.”

“I’m just saying.”

“Sasha.”

“They diiiiiiid, Eren.”

“Who was it?”

“Eren.”

“Sash.”

“Eren.”

“Sash!”

“Stop!”

“It was Connie, wasn’t it?”

“No.”

“Was it Connie?”

“N-no.”

“It was Connie.”

“M...maybe?”

“Oh.”

“Eren, don’t—”

“Connie, I’m going to fucking kill you.”

“Do it, fucker.”

“GUYS!!!!!!”

“Guys, enough.” 

“Moving on! You two can kill each other over Sasha later.”

“Wait. What were we talking about again?”

“Positions. Reiner, you’re next.”

“Uh… I guess spreadeagle.”

“The fuck is that?”

“You don’t wanna know.”

“Historia.”

“What the lesbian said.”

“Pegging?”

“Power top.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Nice. Connie?”

“Just anything BDSM, I think.”

“Dude you’re like five feet tall. What do you mean BDSM?”

“I didn’t say dom or sub.”

“Oh, shit.”

“It better not be with Sasha, Con. I swear to god.”

“Eren!!”

“Who’s next?”

“You know what? Since you’ve been talking so much shit. Eren.”

“Pass.”

“Nope! No passing!”

“Ugh.”

“Favorite position, man?”

“I don’t have one.”

“He’s lying.”

“Tell me he’s lying.”

“I don’t have one.”

“Lies.”

“Reiner, what is it?”

“You’re really asking me that?”

“Hitch, what is it?”

“Um—”

“Mikasa, what is it?”

“It’s doggy.”

Silence.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!”

“AAAAAAAAAAA!!!”

“OOOOOOHHH!!”

“AHHH!”

“Wait, does that—”

“That means—!”

“AAAAAAA”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!”

“Guys, stop screaming!”

“AHHHAHHAHAHA “

“I knew it! I knew it!” 

“THEY’VE FUCKED!!!!!!!!!”

_“Ymir!”_

“Called it! You owe me twenty bucks, every single one of you.”

“AAAAAAA!!!”

“AHHAHHA!”

“OHHHHHHHHH!!!!!”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAA”

“Stop screaming!” 

“Oh look, Eren’s blushing again.”

  
  


**—o—**

Time has passed, and Eren’s had enough of waiting.

He sees her playing with the engagement ring on her finger, and he’s held it in, held it in for so long that the hurt feels like a cap holding in too much water. Yet he doesn’t know how to tell her, how to express his emotions, for they so vehemently spill, washing over him in a way he can’t control. That alarms him.

Eren doesn’t want to scare her away. Not again.

But he needs to know. Because earlier today, when she’d been dressing in his bedroom, he’d caught a glimpse of her naked back through a crack on the door, eyed the slope of her spine and the bones of her shoulder blades, how seamlessly her motions made each muscle contract and release, when she’d suddenly turned and their eyes met.

She hadn’t looked away.

Instead, she held his gaze, the side of her breast gnawing at him, the point of her hip taunting his eyes to linger here, there. And this was the kind of thing that drove him crazy. Because she didn’t look away until he did, until she drew the door shut and simpered through the dwindling space until the latch clicked on the jamb. And he wondered why she did it. She was clearly attached to the ring on her finger—she never seemed to take it off. But yet she did things that completely betrayed its promise; she’d let her hands loiter around sensitive places, touching his back or brushing his arm when walking past him while he’s busy doing something. She’d get his attention, make him fluster, and then she’d pull away as if nothing happened, leaving him barren and lost.

He’s had enough when her sleeping figure gawks at him that afternoon. All Mikasa does is sleep, as if recuperating from something. And he always watches her, as he’s doing right now, except this time he doesn’t have an excuse. He isn’t drawing her, he isn’t memorizing her shape to capture it in his art. He’s just watching her.

Her arms are thrown over the sofa’s armrest, belly exposed, the bottom of her tank top rucked up to her heaving ribs and revealing the glorious indentation of her waist. He can make her out completely, familiar with the way she sways with every breath through parted lips, how her hair spills across the pillow and her cheek, how the points of her breasts pebble under the whiteness of fabric—every corner of her chiseled entirely from the purest, smoothest marble. The curves of her hips are adorned by the blanket that covers her legs and feet, and she looks like Aphrodite of Melos, bearing the clothes on her body in an erotic tease, drapery that could fall away at any second.

Eren sighs, and she must’ve heard him, for her eyes drift open, lashes fluttering as she blinks herself awake.

The moment she’s watching him, staring, not looking away, he breaks.

“Why?” he asks her suddenly, in a voice so soft she barely hears. 

Mikasa doesn’t move. She seems to know what he’s asking, and yet replies, “Why what?”

“All those years ago,” he says, eyeing the way she licks her lips, how the soft pink of her tongue meshes with the crimson of her mouth. “Why’d you leave?”

She’s the one to sigh this time. She sits upright to pull her shirt back down her belly, the blanket falling from her body and onto the couch. Eren wants to capture it, to curl it around her so that she isn’t cold. But then her answer stings. It annoys him.

“Why the sudden question?” 

“That doesn’t answer anything.”

“I just want to know, Eren.”

“Want to know why I ask?”

Mikasa shrugs, rubbing her eyes. “Yes? I don't know. It’s a heavy question.”

“Because, Mikasa,” he elaborates the vowels of her name, dripping himself into every precious syllable. “We can’t keep ignoring it, pretending that nothing’s happened between us.”

“But I like where we are.”

Eren stops. Her voice sounds so tiny, and he knows now isn't a good time. And yet, he can’t contain himself. He gushes, “Please, just tell me. Why did you leave?”

Mikasa purses her lips, rising from the sofa. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Mikasa.”

“Just stop, Eren. Please?”

She’s walking away, and her back to him makes him anxious. She’s leaving him. Eren rises and fills in her footsteps, following her. “I don’t want to stop. Why can’t you just tell me?”

Her hair falls to the center of her back, gently mussed from her sleeping. She stops in the kitchen, cupping the corners of the countertop with her hands. Her shoulders rise and tense, acquiring a defensive stance. “It’s so complicated. I don’t feel like going into this right now.”

“Then when?”

“I don't know? Never.”

Eren laughs. “I’m not allowing that.”

Mikasa turns around to face him. Her face startles him, despite its cool demeanor. She’s stunning. “Why are you pressing it?”

“I just want to know.”

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you.”

“The truth.”

She scoffs, her shoulders dropping. “Eren, what is this? Why this all of a sudden?”

Embarrassed, he stammers. He should let it be, but he’s overflowing, unable to control himself. “I’m sorry, but I just… I’ve been feeling it for a very long time, it’s been gnawing at me. I just want to know.”

Mikasa’s arms fold over her chest. “You want to know why I left you?”

“Yes.”

“Well. Because you left me.”

“What?”

“You left me.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

She pinches the bridge of her nose, scrunching her eyes shut. “Jesus, I don’t want to fight. Let’s not go into this right now, okay?”

Eren shakes his head, baffled. “What do you mean I left you? I was with you until you fucking left out of the blue.”

Mikasa straightens, all emotion draining from her face. “Don’t curse at me.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay, Eren. I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

It happens in an instant.

She starts to leave him again, to cross him on her way out, but gravity seems to betray her and pull her into him instead. Next thing she knows, he’s captured her, grabbed her by the arms. His touch imprisons her. Her eyes drift up to his and he seems just as surprised by the contact as she is. And something in her burns, burns to engulf herself with him, to feel him everywhere, everywhere, like a desperate need, her every pore little lungs that crave his oxygen.

“Let me go,” she whispers, dizzy and lightheaded.

Eren’s lips tighten into a straight line. He shakes his head. “We’re doing this.”

Mikasa swallows, closing her eyes.

She hears him say, “I loved you. I loved you until the very end. I’ve been honest, I’ve bled myself out.”

“It was just too much, Eren.”

“What was?”

“Armin, the baby. I couldn’t take it.”

“So you left me?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Then explain it.”

Her eyes open again and they’re full fire and demand. “Would you let me go? I’m not yours to grab around whenever you want.”

Eren’s are just as ardent, burning into hers. “Then be honest. Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying.”

“You are!”

Mikasa squirms free of his hold, moaning, “God, I hate fighting, Eren. What do you want me to say? That I stopped loving you? That I got sick of you?”

“Is that what it was?”

“Of course not!”

“Then what was it?”

“Ugh.”

“Mikasa, stop walking away.”

“I’m over this.”

“Stop!”

She spins to face him, her hair tumbling over her shoulder. “I am not having this right now, Eren. I can’t!”

He’s two steps behind her, cheeks aflame. His pulse is beating in his ears, pumping so much blood that he feels nauseous. “Stop avoiding me— All this shit! Stop lying to yourself. To me!”

Mikasa squints her eyes at him. “What are you saying?”

Eren’s almost panting. His heart’s beating so loud he swears she can hear it. “Why can’t you be honest, huh? You’re the most honest person I know and lately—”

“Lately what?”

“Lately you can’t bring yourself to admit anything.”

“Like what?”

“You really want me to say it?”

“Please, Eren. Tell me what I won’t admit to myself.”

He exhales, lips parting. The words nearly don’t make their way out, but he pushes them free. Pushes them free and selflessly declares, “That you love me.”

Mikasa winces for a millisecond, but then quickly scoffs. “Yeah?”

“You love me.”

“I’m engaged.”

“That doesn’t mean shit. It’s just a ring around your finger.”

She seems hurt. “Eren, stop.”

“You don’t love Jean like you love me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You don’t want him how you want me.”

“Stop it.”

“Why? Because you can’t admit to yourself I’m who you think about when he’s fucking you?”

“Stop it!”

“Be honest, Mikasa! Fuck, I’m so tired of this shit. Just be honest!”

“Leave me alone!” She runs away this time, quickly disappearing into the bedroom. She throws the door shut, leaving Eren to stare at the cracks on the wood.

He holds a hand to the door, shouting, “You’re acting like a child!”

Mikasa’s voice is a muffled cry. “You see? This is just it, Eren. You push and push and push and you drive people crazy.”

“Oh, so I’m the problem.”

“Yes!”

“Is that what it was? Is that why you left?”

“I was scared! I was nineteen! What the hell do you want me to tell you?”

“I was scared too! That doesn’t mean I was going to abandon you!”

“God, I hate this. I hate this.”

“Well, own up to it, Mikasa. Life sucks sometimes and you have to deal with shit like this. You have to explain yourself to the people you fuck over.”

“Why are you like this? Why can’t you just let things go?”

“Because they’re not over!”

Silence.

All Eren hears is his own breathing, until a little sound makes his eyes fall to the doorknob. He sees it stutter then turn, followed by the quiet creak of the door opening.

Mikasa stands before him now, her lips slightly parted.

“What did you say?”

Eren sighs. “It’s not over yet. It was never over for me.”

“Well, it’s over,” she hisses, coming in so close to him he can smell the tinge of cinnamon in her hair. “Get that into your head, Eren. It’s over between us.”

“You can’t say that.”

“It’s over!”

He explodes, banging his fist on the door so hard it swings all the way open and crashes into the wall. “Then why are you here?! Huh? Why are you in _my_ home wearing _my_ clothes and sleeping in _my_ bed? Why are you here?”

“I—”

“That’s just it, Mikasa. Can’t you see? You come in when I try to get rid of you. Can’t you see what you do to me? How this— How it’s fucking killing me?”

“I never—”

“Just leave me then. Leave me again! Let me go then, if it’s over. Stop pulling me back in. It kills me when I see you with that ring on your finger. And you gaslight the shit out of me, you act like it’s nothing, like I’m the one making a big deal. You’re screwing with my head and then act dumb when I call you out on it. What the fuck is it then? What the fuck do you want?”

“Eren—”

“I love you.”

Shock takes over the two of them, and Eren realizes what he’s just said a second too late. He sees the way Mikasa stiffens, her eyes going wide. Before she can do or say anything, before she can run away again or deny or belabor, he feels himself completely break. 

“I fucking love you. God, so much. And you don’t even have it in you to tell me why you left and it kills me everyday. Because I still love you, Mikasa. I do. And I hate that. I wish I could rip this feeling out of me but I can’t. I can’t.”

She walks through the threshold, reaching out for him.

“Don’t,” Eren flinches, closing his eyes. “Please.”

When he opens them again, he sees that Mikasa's shaking. His vision blurs and he can hardly see her through the fog in his eyes, only hear her take in a breath that seems to rattle her entirely.

“You frighten me,” she breathes. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Do you still love me?” Eren feels the tears all the way in his heart. “Please, just say yes.”

Mikasa freezes. Her gaze flickers over his features, the hairs that fall over his eyes, the bruise on his cheek and the little cuts on his face—all her fault. The tears in his eyes. All her fault. She doesn’t know where to look, what she’s even looking for. It feels like forever before she whispers, “I can’t.”

Eren feels the tears spill free. He cries, unbidden, for her to see.

“Then go.” His voice cracks. He’s begging. “Please. Go.”

“Eren—”

“I can’t, Mik. I just can't.”

“Eren!”

Mikasa is left so shout after a shadow, for he leaves the apartment and all she’s left with is the echoes of a slamming door. She doesn’t know what takes over her, but she’s crying before she can process what just occurred.

She hurt him.

And all she can think of is the look on his face when she did. He looked so scathed, so small, and as the rush of all that just happened washes over, she can hear him trotting down the stairway outside, the rattling of his keys and him slipping on the coat he’d grabbed while rushing out. When the door into the building bangs shut, clamoring so loudly that even the walls seem to shake, Mikasa flinches with her entire body. In that instant, tears pour down her cheeks, sobs tear through her chest, and she can’t even stop them, she can’t even dream of doing so. 

Her knees buckle and she falls onto the floor, gasping. She’s so far gone, she doesn’t hear Hitch and Sasha knocking, doesn’t hear when they walk in, only knows they’re there when they find her and Sasha curls her arms around her quaking frame.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, holding her tight as if trying to stop her from bursting into pieces.

“I hurt him,” Mikasa cries. She cries like she hasn’t been able to do in years. She hears herself wailing like a child, sobbing so hard she can’t even breathe. “I hurt him.”

“We heard everything,” Hitch says, kneeling to stroke her hair. “We’re so sorry, Mikasa. We wanted to make sure that you’re okay.”

“You’re okay,” Sasha croons as she holds her, rocking her gently like a babe. “You’re okay.”

There’s nothing else to do or say, so Mikasa allows herself to break, to crumble apart in every way. She can’t carry the weight of herself anymore, so she lets the girls be what keeps her up, utterly succumbing to the ache, to the unbelievable ache of wanting something you have so close, yet so far away. 

Sasha and Hitch wrap themselves around her, gripping her with all their might. And in their arms, Mikasa decides to leave them, to leave Eren, like she did all those years ago, to do what’s best. What’s right. To erase herself from this mess she’s made—the mess they’ve all made together—just as Eren wants her to. For his sake, her sake. For the sake of all of them.

**—o—**

It’s nighttime when he musters the courage to come back home. He knows that she won’t be there anymore, and he feels so heavy inside, the contents of his being sitting in there like cold iron. 

The colors around him all fade out, city lights carrying him through the streets like a moth to a flame. He just has to make it to the next streetlight, then the next one, then the next one, and he’ll be home.

Home. 

The term feels so vacant.

Images of the past few months flash before him. And he’s too devastated to cry, too tired. He floats through the streets and into his apartment building. Sasha and Hitch’s lights are out, but it’s so late in the night he’s not surprised that they are sleeping. Part of him wants the company, the solace of knowing he isn’t the only person in the world. But it doesn’t matter. Everything sleeps around him, leaving him only to himself.

He makes it to the door of his apartment and drowsily turns the key, pushes, and makes his way inside. It’s empty, sunken in complete darkness save for the city lights that bleed in through the curtained windows. There are vestiges of Mikasa’s presence all around him. He closes his eyes, breathes. And he can still smell her here. Feel her.

A light goes on.

Eren’s heart jumps, a hyper little thing he forgot was still in him. His eyes go to his bedroom, where the darkness is punctured by a dim glow. Mechanically, his footsteps bring him to it. Part of him swears he’s dreaming, wonders if he’s dead or crazy or what. But when he gently makes his way through and stands at the door, he finds her. 

Mikasa.

He nearly sighs at the sight of her, of her body clad in nothing but an oversized flannel shirt of his. She turns to look at him and merely stands there, silent, until a breath slips into her and she’s speaking to him.

“Eren, please listen to what I have to say.” She cuts any questions from him, her face an angelic sculpture half-shadowed in the light. “All I ask is that you listen.”

Immediately, he makes his way to her, tears brimming in his eyes. Nodding, he holds her face in his hands. Her eyes close as she melts into his touch, and she feels so warm, so real. She begins when he releases her. Her voice is calm and leveled, as controlled as she can manage it right now.

“I can’t pinpoint the exact reason I was compelled to leave you,” she begins. “I think there was too much going on to clarify just one motive. I think there were several, too many reasons why. I couldn’t face the fact we’d lost so much, that I felt like me being around you reminded us both of that. Because it reminded me. I was overwhelmed. In no way do I think this excuses my actions, and I want you to know that I am deeply sorry for all the pain I’ve caused you since. It wasn’t my intention at all. The last thing I ever want is for you to suffer, especially on my behalf.”

Eren parts his lips but she stops them from speaking. She shakes her head, smiling softly. “I was taken by you the moment I met you. With your dirty soccer ball and your crazy hair. I thought you were the most incredible thing, Eren. I knew in that moment that I would love you, although I was too young to understand that at the time. But I need to clarify that I never stopped. Not for one second, not even after I left. I, too, don’t know how to stop it. I’m not sure how not to feel what I need to feel. So I just feel it, and I just love you. And that’s just it.”

She’s crying now. Her hands find his and she holds them, brings them to her chest. Eren feels her at the backs of his fingers, the solidity of heartbeat against bone. 

“It wasn’t over for me either, Eren. It will never be over. I think God has woven us together in a way that’s meant to last eternities. I think I loved you before I was even born, and I’ll continue to do so even after my last breath. Everyday since the moment I left, I’ve fought that. I’m fighting it still. Because it isn’t over. I promise you this, it’s not over yet.”

She lifts her head to look at him, and Eren realizes how close they are. He can smell the sleeplessness in her breath, and he wants to taste her tears, to drink her in. But she’s not finished. Hiccupping, composing herself, she continues. 

“I’m not very good with words, and no language can properly convey what I feel for you. But Eren, you…” She stops, choking back a small sob against the back of her hand. She’s cracking, but she pushes, “You are the light of my life. From the moment I met you, you’ve blessed me immensely. I can’t even imagine a life without you, I don’t want to. Those five years we were apart were a death to me. And although I kept reminding myself that it was for the best, there is never a good enough reason to stop fighting for what you love. What you want. You told me that so many times before. And I see that now. I see that. I love you, Eren. With everything I am, I love you. I think, if anything, you should know that. I do. I love—”

Sobs split her words apart. Her hands leave his to cover her mouth as she trembles into them. Eren feels himself breaking, feels his own tears spill free. He holds her face, and his hands are shaking, stilling against her cheeks.

“So, please, don’t go,” she whimpers. “Not now. Not yet. Don’t leave me.”

“Mikasa.” His utterance of her name makes her look up at him. He runs his thumbs across her cheeks, wiping her tears, and he tells her, “I’m still here.”

She nods, holding his wrists, sighing. “We should go to bed. I’m so exhausted.”

Eren laughs quietly. “Okay.”

Mikasa smiles. “Okay.”

And it is amazing, truly, when she curls under the bedsheets, how quickly her eyes go shut and she’s blowing bubbles in her sleep. Eren showers, dresses, and goes off into the living room to sleep on the couch, still floaty and high off her declaration.

“Good night,” she’d told him before drifting off.

And as he lays on the couch, dizzy with happiness and marveling at the night’s turn of events, he thinks of Armin, of what he’d say right now if Eren told him all that just happened. He’d be so happy, he knows it. So proud of him. Of her. And with that thought in his mind, Eren closes his eyes. 

“Good night. I love you too.”

**—o—**

Something heavy on his chest jolts him awake.

The girl gasps, and Eren thinks that he’s still dreaming.

Through the darkness, he stares at her, she stares at him. She’d been listening to his heartbeat, the way she used to do when they were younger, and the sudden realization overwhelms him. 

He opens his mouth but nothing comes out. Her eyes fall to his lips, gazing sleepily. And before he knows it, their foreheads bump together and her breath is sweet on his tongue when he kisses her, when he grabs her cheek and her hands fall to his chest.

Their kiss deepens, and when Eren realizes what he’s done, when he pulls away and gasps and prays she’s not offended, he pants, “I’m sorry—”

But she smiles softly, cupping his cheek. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she whispers. The taste of her lips still paints his mouth. “Come to bed,” she tells him. “Sleep with me tonight.”

Eren stares at her. She’s tracing the outlines of his neck with her fingertips. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She’s certain, a tiny smile still adorning her lips. She closes her eyes, kisses him again, her hands working at ridding his body of the blanket that covers it. Against his lips, she sighs, “Come to bed, Eren.”

He says no more.

Through the darkness, their silhouettes move. With her hand in his, she guides him. And Eren is a stranger to his own home, venturing it one step after the other, crossing the distance between the couch and his bedroom, counting his footsteps, his breaths, and reminding himself that she’s here, she’s here, the angel.

She’s still here.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is, and always will be, my favorite chapter in this entire fic.
> 
> i added many things. to be precise, 3k words worth of content (in one sitting again because i like pain). most of that is the descriptions of what living together again was like for them, although i was hesitant to add absolutely anything to this chapter due to the fact that it's the one piece of writing i have ever been proud of. so, apologies for it being so paragraphy. i've done it again. 
> 
> the scene where eren was playing guitar and his friends all joined in to sing together was inspired by [this](https://open.spotify.com/track/3Dgyz6QmECeINw2wai6Bm2?si=L8aBgrVjTCyEMvn6my-9Jw). i'm a sucker for cheesiness at times. glorious cover, though.
> 
> i love you guys. thanks for reading and supporting. for the kudos (almost at 1k!??!?! the fuck??) and the comments and the love. 
> 
> i'll see you soon,  
> nati


	32. The Disappearance Act

It’s the silence in the absence that haunts the most.

Armin died on his favorite moon phase, a first quarter moon. He always said he loved the way it looked like that, half and half. The bright half of it here, the shadowed half of it nowhere. “You see?” he’d say. “Even the moon itself can be shy.”

He’s gone. 

He’s really gone.

Eren had seen death enough times to be acquainted with it, but there was something about it, the stillness of it, that he’d never realized before. He’d seen part of it with Mom’s body, what she looked like in the casket—no color of life or breath. He’d seen it even in Dad, the way a spiritual death can suck everything right out of a man. 

But holding death, having it in his hands, seeing a chest that bled and didn’t bloat and wane with respiration, blinkless eyes that were half and half—the bright half of them here, the shadowed half of them nowhere—it was so acute and brutal that Eren swore the sight alone would kill him. Still, his eyes had to open anyway. His own chest had to be sewn shut. His own life had to keep going. And Eren wondered. 

Why?

They said he was a miracle.

They said they couldn’t explain how it was that he could move after the crash, how it was that he got out and saved Mikasa. They even said that. That he _saved_ her. 

Armin was gone.

There weren’t enough miracles to change that.

They said they had to shock him, that he was so far gone it had to be done until it scorched his chest. They would be scars, those burn marks on him, proof of how hard they fought to keep him here. And Eren wondered.

Why?

Armin was gone.

He screamed when he woke up and it all set in, when he had to know and feel and see that the horror was real. He’d come back to have to hear them: miracle, miracle, miracle. But what was so miraculous about surviving something like that? About being left behind again? 

Death was so fixed and pale. His entire life, Eren had heard of it being so romanticized. They’d done it with his mother, then with Mikasa’s parents. It’s not the end, they’d say. It’s just a door, they’d say. There’s more to death than the physical self. But you can’t say that to a nonbeliever and expect it to bring comfort—not to one that is for good. Because none of it is true. Death isn’t pretty or poetic or inspiring. It doesn’t bring reflection or gratitude or fondness or love. It’s not what makes artists paint or musicians create music. It’s ugly. It’s death. 

It was almost insulting, how they kept trying to tell him those things to calm him, what they gave to soothe him when he tried to rip off IV’s. He once even begged they’d kill him.

Even then, miracle.

Even then, “God is good.”

Even then, Armin was gone.

On the day Eren saw Mikasa again, Armin’s least favorite moon phase dotted the sky. Waxing gibbous. He used to call it lazy, the way it teased its glow, showing just a little more to leave spectators impatient. “Why shine like that when you can just be whole already?” 

Mikasa was discharged to go home before he was. She didn’t need the extra eyes on her, the procedure to stitch up lacerations and cuts that went too deep, that nearly cost him his right hand, the one he used for almost everything. No bones broken. No organ damage. Just that. Even with his hand all fucked up, he could still move a finger. They used that word again, miracle, when he moved another, then another, and they said he would be fine.

Waxing gibbous, Armin’s least favorite moon phase, and Mikasa was there.

It was the first time he woke up and didn’t regret it. His eyes opened to find her, and she still looked at him like he was the most incredible thing in the world. Even like that, she still did it. 

She sat on the bed and held his cheek, tears in her eyes as she swiped her thumb along his cheekbone. And she said hello, said she missed him, that she loved him—like he wasn’t the reason she had a fractured rib and a cut on her own cheek. She was thankful he was still with her.

“How are you?” she’d asked. A silly question. He thought of Armin and the answer he always gave, the one he could never give again. 

Still alive. 

After everything, still alive.

In his being, Eren begged her not to say it. But Mikasa was a believer, so she still did.

_Miracle._

He came home on a full moon. The way it bathed the world below it was particularly known to him—Armin had taught them to keep an eye out for it. “It’s when everything’s aglow and nothing can escape it that you know it’s there.” 

Full moon.

Reflector of the sun, marker of time’s passage. An entire moon phase gone.

“Welcome home,” Mikasa told him when they made it inside.

Eren didn’t answer her.

**—o—**

It was preposterous to think so, but she’d always thought that those with faith got special treatment. When things happen, it’s for a reason. It’s God’s plan. But Mikasa couldn’t understand what it was that justified taking Armin from this world.

Nothing justified that. 

Not even God. 

_Especially_ God. 

Losing her parents had already introduced her to this grief, but she was naïve to think that it had taught her everything. Loss comes in different forms and extracts. You think you know them all, and then a new disaster outdoes everything and you have to learn again.

Mama and Papa were giant tragedies, craters so great she’d numbed herself out to avoid having to fill them. But nothing could seclude her from the giant loss of Armin. Every moment of her life, he was always there, a facet and an option. She knew him before Eren, had him even before memory could recall. She had never known a life without him, and no longer, and now never, would that ever be a choice. 

The biggest devastation is the permanence of all the nevers. No more car rides, no more stars, no more waves and sands and beaches. No more Armin. Never again.

As wild as it was, Mikasa almost didn’t want the mourning to ever end. She didn’t want time to pass and her rib to heal and the cut on her cheek to scar or vanish. She didn’t want all the things she knew would help her feel better, because that meant time, and time meant that Armin’s smell would vanish from the clothes still in his closet, from the bedsheets Mikasa burrowed herself into every night. It meant his face would become a blur, and each passing day she’d be able to make him out less and less, forget where that one freckle sat on his face, where the tip of his nose perked up just a little bit, every sway and wax and wane of breath, the blonde and blue and everything that was Armin. Time passing meant more time without him. 

But it still went by, shifted into weeks, then a month, then two. Moon phases completed and began anew. There were cloudy nights, then nights where all the stars could be seen clearly. Time was stubborn like that, as stubborn as the very nuances of gravity and eons of calculation that held the planets in place.

It was one day that she heard Eren stirring while she was in Armin’s room. In the silence, she heard his motions as he rose, gasping awake from his sleep, and he ran to the bathroom, and he retched, coughed, threw up all the pain, all the sickness, everything that decayed inside.

Drowsily, the girl got up from Armin’s bed and went over to the bathroom where Eren had locked himself inside. She knocked quietly. “Eren?”

No answer.

She sighed. “Let me in.”

Nothing.

As her back met the door and she slid down onto the ground, she sat there, defeated, tired, listening to Eren sniffle and sob into the toilet bowl. Her eyes dug around her surroundings. Their room was hardly lit save for the afternoon sun that dwindled, dust particles loitering in its muted rays. It was then that she saw Eren’s old guitar tucked somewhere in a corner. Wearily, she rose to retrieve it, then sat back down before the door and hoisted the instrument against her body.

It was too large for her, and Eren always said that instruments came in sizes to match those who wielded them. Still, strumming a chord, then two, she began the prelude to a song he had taught her years ago. Quietly, she sang.

_I heard there was a secret chord / That David played and it pleased the Lord…_

She paused.

Eren stopped crying. She heard him sniffle.

She went on.

_But you don’t really care for music, do you? / Well, it goes like this: the fourth, the fifth / The minor fall and the major lift / The baffled king composing Hallelujah…_

The doorknob rattled.

With a start, Mikasa rose from the floor and stood in front of an exhausted Eren. He smelled of vomit and sleep. He looked at her. He said nothing.

“Please, don’t shut me out,” was all Mikasa could think to tell him.

Eren wiped at the corner of his mouth and collapsed into her. She caught him and held him as he cried. And she didn’t bother to comfort him more, to give words or any other half-assed attempt at consolation, for nothing could erase the reality of everything. No matter how much they wept, how much they threw up or played guitar or suffered, nothing would ever bring Armin back. 

Because Eren’s ache was so grand, Mikasa had no time to mourn herself. She had help at times, doctors that watched and evaluated him, friends and colleagues that gave support. As terrible as it was, all Mikasa wanted was to take care of Eren because it meant she didn’t have to face the pain herself.

Not yet. Not now. Let it eat itself alive. She was never one to mourn for herself anyway.

It was one morning after she woke that Mikasa sat up on the bed and gazed into the light that poured in from the bedroom window. It was bright enough to make her wince, to make her wonder how things could still glow and be like that. After some drowsy blinks, she turned her head to find Eren sleeping beside her.

His cheek sunk into the pillow, shoulders rising and falling with his breathing. There were so many nights where he couldn’t sleep like that, where he’d have nightmares that jostled him awake with pants and screams and tears—sometimes so violent that she had to hold him down and wrap herself around him so tight that it was suffocating. But it wasn’t like that last night. Looking at him then, he seemed almost peaceful. 

Mikasa pushed his hair back from his face, swiping her thumb over the arch of his brow to trace him out and feel him. He was still Eren. Still Eren when he looked like that.

She thought of all the things she hadn’t told him yet, everything that started happening to her. The mornings throwing up while he was sleeping, the nausea and the weight. Everything about her felt so heavy—and she didn’t know if it was grief or exhaustion or what. Making love became too painful, and they had to stop even though it was the only thing that ever made her feel like they were still together. When she held her breasts, they felt so heavy in her hands, so tender it sometimes hurt to touch them. They’d gotten bigger, and much too fast. She didn’t even want to think of what that meant.

So she kept it all hidden from Eren. That was new in their house. Secrets.

Mikasa never lied to him before, but she started telling him that she didn’t want to do ballet because of her rib even though it had healed entirely. She started telling him that she felt sick all the time because of the painkillers she had to take in the mornings even though she’d started skipping those a long time ago. She never wanted to tell him or ask for help, because it’s not like he could even do that.

Eren was gone. Even when she tried to convince herself that he wasn’t, Mikasa knew that Eren was gone.

There would be entire days where he wouldn’t talk to her, times he’d go out and leave without telling her so that she had to worry until he felt like coming back. There would be times she’d speak to him and he’d straight up ignore her. He’d look at her, and those eyes she’d always known had changed so much it scared her. They would stare right through her, almost lifeless, devoid of feeling and color in a way that they were never meant to be.

Before everything, they’d tried to evaluate him for more. Maybe his bipolar was something else, they’d said. Maybe he had Borderline Personality Disorder, they’d said. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, they’d said. He’d always say he had to pull away when he felt angry, violent, upset because he didn’t want to hurt her, didn’t want to say things or lash out even though he still did sometimes. So he pulled away, and he never listened when Mikasa told him that it’s when he’d do that that he hurt her most. 

She just wanted him. She just needed him. But Eren was gone.

It was when his wounds no longer had stitches and Eren’s palm no longer bled, that he finally said a coherent word to her.

“It’s my fault he’s dead,” is what he told her.

Mikasa looked at him over breakfast. Cooly, she replied, “It’s not.”

Eren had sighed.

Then, unceremoniously, with no warning or preparation, she decided to take the opportunity to confess, “I’m pregnant.”

Eren’s eyes rose from his plate slowly. They were, although foggy and tired, all together shocked. 

“What?”

Mikasa was the one to sigh this time. “I haven’t had my period in a while. Yesterday, I took two tests. They were both positive.”

This kind of conversation should not have been delivered the way that it was. There was no joy. No excitement. They shared the news as if it were an inconvenience, a fault, as if they weren’t hoping and dreaming for this very thing to happen only months ago.

But only months ago, growing their family was an option. And they didn’t have one anymore.

“I took another test this morning just in case,” she said. “I’m pregnant, Eren.”

He was silent. He looked stunned. She didn’t want him to look like that. Stop, she begged. _Go back to being numb_. _Go back to being absent, Eren. Go back to not caring. Please._

He was quiet. He didn’t say anything. At that point, she could no longer bear it.

“Anyway.” Mikasa stood up from her chair. “We’re not keeping it.”

Eren paused. She waited for his voice but nothing came. After a while, he nodded. “Yeah. It’s for the best.” 

And Mikasa had nothing left of her heart to break.

**—o—**

Her fingertips lingered on her belly button, tracing little circles as she hummed under her breath.

Peeking in through the bathroom door, Eren watched her figure in the bathtub, body blurred beneath the water but he could still make out every tiny bit of her, even the ones he hadn’t felt or touched for so long. He didn’t know how far along she was in her pregnancy, but each time he thought about it, it dawned on him that she was carrying his child.

Was she pregnant during the crash?

Did the baby survive that?

It baffled him how life could be picked and chosen like that. Armin was dead. He was dead. And now Mikasa had life growing inside of her.

He made his way towards her and knelt beside the tub, pulling a wet lock of hair from her cheek so that she’d look at him. When her eyes settled on him, he said, “I don’t want you to go through with it.”

Mikasa’s brows raised. “What?”

“I don’t want you to have an abortion.”

“You want to keep it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Eren’s hand broke through the water’s surface and sunk onto her belly, where he replaced her hand with his own. “It’s a life you’ve got growing in you,” he said. “Our life. I can’t help feeling that this is meant to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“Armin.” Saying his name hurt them both. Fresh tears punctured Eren’s eyes—they were so quick to come these days, but he held them back, swallowed them in. This time, he needed to be strong for her. To be strong and say, “Armin would’ve wanted us to keep it.”

They both watched her belly silently. It was hardly swollen, there was almost no way of knowing that there was a little person growing inside. He looked up at Mikasa, and she looked right back, and for the first time since the accident, Eren held her gaze and he admired her, adored her, let her know he did both.

Since Armin’s death, he hadn’t seen her cry, not even complain. She’d taken care of him. Wordlessly, lovingly, even when all he did was push her away, she’d fed him and clothed him and bathed him and caressed his wounds—his chest, his arms, his palm, she’d kissed them all. The skin was already scarring, as was the cut on her cheek, all physical indications of time that passed. He couldn’t help wondering what another month would do. Mikasa’s belly would be bigger. Their wounds would’ve healed more. Their relationship… What would it be?

“I shouldn’t say this,” Eren murmured, his lips to the cut on her cheek, “but what if this is our second chance?”

Mikasa smiled softly, placing her hand over his. They both held her belly, and she said, “I don’t want an abortion, either.”

“Mikasa, let’s keep it. Let’s raise it. I think we can.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” His eyes went gentle on her, and Mikasa marveled at the sight, at the old tender Eren—her tender, sweet, loving Eren coming back. He kissed her, pulled back, and smiled. She hadn’t seen that little dimple in a long while. “I know we can, Mik. I love you, and I love our baby. I don’t want anything to happen to you two.”

For the first time since the accident, Eren saw tears in Mikasa’s eyes.

“Oh, Eren,” she sighed. “Is it wrong to feel happy?”

“No,” he said. “I feel happy too.”

She hugged him. Throwing her arms around his neck, Mikasa held him, her nose in his hair when she whispered, “Thank you.”

As his chest was to her chest, her wet body to his naked wounds, he wondered if perhaps their baby was a gift. It was mad to dare think such a thing, to think of hope and resurrection. But then he thought of Armin, Mr. and Mrs. Ackerman, his mother. And he thanked them in his heart, for his child carried the spirit of all of them, all residues of life they’d left behind. This was the second chance, the new life that made up for everything. He was certain of that.

  
  


**—o—**

Days passed, and the nightmares resumed.

There were nights that Mikasa had to sleep in Armin’s bedroom because Eren was thrashing too much and she was afraid he would hit her belly. It often baffled her that she had life growing within her, Eren’s and hers. She’d dreamt of this moment since she was just a little girl, and although she never imagined that it would unfold in this way, she still felt a tinge—a burgeoning, impossible tinge—of excitement at the thought of being a mother.

Maybe Eren was right. Maybe this was their second chance.

Without Armin, their house was too big and too quiet, the silence punctured only by Eren’s occasional whimpers and moans while he slept. But soon, Mikasa imagined, that silence would end. It would teem with their baby’s cries and Mikasa’s lullabies, with Eren’s loving murmurs and the squeaks and rattles of toys, and their house would feel like a home again. Its walls would regain their warmth, every corner would remember its purpose and name. Bedroom, kitchen, living room, hallway—all made to shelter life. She could already hear the faint tapping of a toddler’s feet running along the hallways, the pop of bubbles in their warm little bath, the quiet hums of their sleeping. She painted their tiny presence everywhere, colored in their existence with her mind.

Eren’s copious sleeping began to dwindle, and he rested less and less. With less sleep, came more time with Mikasa, and as her belly slowly grew, Eren spoke out more, felt more like himself. Soon, the silence between them filled, and Mikasa felt accompanied by him once again, even if his coming back out of himself was slow and sometimes arduous.

Steadily, as the days passed, they began to feel more functional. More okay.

Time was made to move, and it moved, and it moved until Mikasa’s tummy filled her palms a bit more and Eren’s kisses peppered the skin around her belly button. The suffering of loss was always there, unrelenting in the background, whispering behind everything that breathed. But somehow they bore through the pain and lived. Mikasa thought of this when she laid one night beside Eren, kissed his resting eyelids, and went to sleep.

It was pain that had awoken her.

A sharp pang in her abdomen made her gasp and her eyes blow open. Eren stirred at the sound but did no more. Mikasa laid motionless, and she thought if she did not move perhaps the pain would go away on its own. But it didn’t, it only worsened. Her mind went to the baby, and upon reaching down between her legs, she felt moisture.

Blood.

“Eren,” she panted, shaking him violently. “Eren, please, wake up.”

He moaned. “What’s wrong?”

“The baby,” she whispered in the darkness. “I think I’m bleeding.”

Eren jolted upright, sat up. “What?”

“The baby,” Mikasa words trembled. She felt like crying but was too scared to do so. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”

Promptly, Eren reached over to the bedside table and turned on the light. When the glow illuminated the bed, they both gasped.

Streaks of red stained the whiteness of the bed sheets. It was horrid, how the colors clashed, how the smell of blood permeated the air. Eren swallowed, whispered, “Fuck.”

Mikasa started crying.

Without another word, he sprang up from the bed and went for her. “Mik,” he breathed into her ear as she sobbed, “Mik, baby, can you move?”

“It hurts,” she cried, clutching her chest with her hands. “It hurts, Eren.”

“I’m here, I’m here,” he said, linking his arms behind her back and legs and lifting her off the bed. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“I’m scared,” she sniveled, weeping into the crook of his neck as he carried her into the bathroom. Gently, but with desperate urgency, Eren dropped her to her feet and helped her undress. The bottom of her nightgown was completely ruined, blood dyeing its faint blush a much darker, redder color—a color Eren had never wanted to see like that again. No more blood. No more accidents. Tears poured from Mikasa’s eyes, and when she was naked, he helped her into the bathtub, promised he’d be back quickly, and told her to wait.

As Mikasa sat in the tub, she cried so hard a spill of blood gushed out of her. Upon feeling it, she gasped, covered her mouth, swallowed in her tears and held her breath. Maybe if she was still, very still, the blood would stop. She waited, heard Eren dial a number on his cellphone, felt the faint trickle of moisture dribble between her legs. And she prayed, for the first time in a long, long time. To Mama and Papa. To Carla. To Armin. Prayed.

“Please,” she whispered between sobs, rubbing her small belly. “Please, be okay.”

“Hello?” she heard Eren talking in the other room. “Yes, hi, my girlfriend— She’s— I think—”

Mikasa listened.

“She’s pregnant and she’s bleeding a lot. I don’t know what to do. Should I take her in? Is it safer if we stay here?”

She closed her eyes.

“She’s three months pregnant. Nineteen, she’s nineteen. Yes. I don’t know. She’s in the bathroom right now, please, just— Should I take her in? What can I do? She’s in so much pain, I don’t—”

A pause.

“What? I’m not sure. I…Yes, it’s a lot. No. No, I would rather drive her then, we can’t wait for an ambulance.”

Another.

“I… I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.”

Through the darkness behind her eyelids, she saw the life within her slowly fade. Felt it.

Fading, fading.

Little by little, her heartbeat stilled.

She heard Eren sighing.

“Alright. Thank you.”

He hung up.

When he appeared again, his eyes were red and puffy. No, she thought. _No, please don’t cry._ Him crying meant that this was bad, that he’d been told so, that there was no little window of hope that everything could be salvaged. He whispered for her to stand up, and she held onto his shoulders as he washed off the blood on her legs, all in deep silence and concentration.

“Will we be okay?” Mikasa asked him.

Eren’s hands stopped at her thighs. Blood seeped down his hands, and he watched the water course in diluted red rivulets down his forearms, her legs, down the drain. Then he blinked, looked up at her. 

“I don’t know.”

**—o—**

Sleepless eyes scanned the waiting room, its stark white walls, shiny floors, high ceilings. All of it encased within a box where oxygen did not quite flow right. It was throttling, being here, again. Eren hated hospitals. They reeked of sickness. Of death. Of Mom and Armin and everything he hated.

When the nurse called for him, he stood up. He was so tired, tired to the core. They said that he could see her, so he went into Mikasa’s little white room, stopped at the door, then stood and watched her.

She was sleeping.

It had been hours since he’d last seen her, and he missed her. Missed the depth of her eyes, the lisp of her voice. All he wanted was his Mikasa. When she awoke, her lids gently fluttering open, Eren felt relief—she always made things better. But then the reality of their existence weighed heavily upon them.

They’d lost the baby.

Another life. Gone.

Mikasa was silent, blinking imperceptibly at some point in space. She didn’t speak, so neither did Eren. He was uncertain as to how to acknowledge their current state. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t his. This time, it was nobody’s.

That was when she started to cry. Her face contorted with her tears, her eyes closing and leaving him barren of her gaze and all that comforted him.

Without a word, Eren slipped into the small hospital bed and held her. He pulled her into him, felt her little sobs at his chest, and all the tears in him were wrung out dry so he couldn’t join her. He held her until the sunlight dwindled outside, until her sobs disappeared and he was left with her motionless body.

“Mik,” he breathed into her shoulder at some point. “I’m so sorry.”

She did not reply.

And that was the scary part, you see, because that was when Eren understood that something in her had shifted. She even smelled and felt different to him, and so he grasped at the corners of her skin, clasped on so tight so that she’d stay with him. But little did he know that she was already gone, that from that point on, Mikasa would erase herself. She’d grow smaller, thinner, and disappear. She’d sleep on the couch instead of the bed so that he wouldn’t be tempted to make love to her. She’d stop eating so that her body diminished and she’d occupy less space. Even the way she breathed would become different, like she was reluctant to exist, to inhale.

Shortly after, she’d leave him.

Eren would watch helplessly as she faded from his life, faded from within his very grasp. He’d wake up and she’d be gone. On Christmas. And he’d forget how to function by himself—he’d never really had to when she was always there. He’d addle and turn to violence, to wreckage, and destroy. And he’d have to learn to live anew, afresh, like a baby. It was a sort of death, a forced rebirth, to lose her like that.

**—o—**

Anger filled him on the night he sat motionless, staring at the front door of their house, waiting for her to spring in at any second. Come back. Come back.

But she never did.

An explosion of beer and glass shattered against the wooden panel, propelled from his fingertips and exploding to shards that twinkled on the floor. Eren was drunk, so drunk he couldn’t even walk straight as he went to put on his coat, the burden of it pushing down on his shoulders. He staggered out, glass cracking under his boots, and walked all the way to the nearest bar, where the stench of alcohol and women permeated all the way to his bones.

He couldn’t recall exactly how he ended up staring at the bottom of another empty beer bottle, but something about it reminded him of his father. How funny, that he spent his entire life accusing him of being weak for drowning his aches within alcohol only to end up just like him.

At some point, Sarah Hale appeared beside him, with her large breasts crammed within a pink tank top and her eyes so blue and wide he couldn’t bring himself to look at them and think of how they matched Armin. So he kept his eyes on her neck, her chest, and it was almost vile how she seemed to like that. The soft blush of her top reminded him of Mikasa, and the thought physically hurt him. He winced when Sarah shouted, “Eren! Oh, my gosh, it’s been so long!”

He slurred something back, quickly forgetting his words the moment they left him.

Sarah’s eyes widened, then crinkled with her smile. Then she asked if she could sit next to him and he said yes. She ordered more drinks and caught him up on her life like he gave shit. She spoke of college and careers and friends, and it all reminded Eren that yes, nineteen-year-olds are meant to do that. They’re meant to study and party and go to college. They don’t get girls pregnant then get abandoned and kill their best friends in a car accident. They don’t have scars on their body and a mother that’s dead and a father that’s gone and nothing left in them. They aren’t like him. 

Sarah kept talking, and Eren was so desensitized that he found a strange comfort in her presence, as if her link to his past somehow brought him closer to Mikasa.

Everything, everything, was Mikasa.

He saw her everywhere, felt her everywhere. She haunted him moments later when he left the bar with Sarah and followed her home. She haunted him when he went into her bedroom and she closed the door, when her mouth found his and alcohol met alcohol and a tiny hum of happiness rang in Sarah’s throat.

Eren clawed at the relativity of her body, at the materialism of it. Because when he kissed her back, her sour taste slowly faded into sweetness, her platinum blonde hair turned to black, and even her smell—strong perfume tinged with shampoo—became Mikasa.

“Eren,” Sarah’s utterance of his name came out of the wrong mouth, morphed to something lisp and breathless. In a tangle of breaths came her sudden moan and he knew he was inside her. She felt so different, so strange, but he continued. He dug his nails into her and fucked her until she clamped his hair and made him look into her eyes, and when he did, all he could see was darkness.

He gasped, because at that moment, he saw Mikasa. So purely and real, she was in front of him. And she smiled. And everything was okay. And he cried. He kissed her and cried and prayed and prayed and prayed that if this was only a dream, only his imagination, that he would never wake up, never.

His drunkenness lulled him to sleep that cold night. When he arose the next morning, there was nothing left of him. He gathered his clothes and slipped them on, recoiled in disgust from a perfectly sincere and sleeping Sarah, and went home.

The house smelled of beer and ghosts, a smell he breathed in deeply before collecting all of his belongings, including a stash of five-hundred dollar bills he’d kept around for emergencies, and calling a cab.

“Where to, sir?” the driver had asked him.

And when Eren gazed up at the rearview mirror, he caught his own reflection. He was a stranger to himself, and something in his spirit felt completely raw, wiped clean. He remembered Mikasa’s uncle, Levi, who lived in the city just about two hours away. In a last bout of desperation, Eren hoped she’d be there. She had changed her phone number, erased everything that could help him seek her out. But she couldn’t erase Levi. 

Could he do it? Could he go to him and find her and see if she was there?

Should he?

No, he told himself. That’s too easy. She wasn’t there. But something in him still dared to hope. Dared to dream. Dared to imagine someday finding her again, running into her and commencing anew. And in that moment, he did not hate her. Did not love her. She was just a fragment of his future, a shard of his past. A motionless, emotionless aspect of his being.

“Sir?” the cab driver implored. “Where to?”

Eren gazed out the car window and stared at the house. His house. Their house. Armin’s laughter rang in his ears, and he swore that he could still see stars in the sky, the moon, all the constellations that made his little friend up—but none of that was there. Armin wasn’t there and neither was Mikasa. Mentally, he swatted their faces away, he closed his eyes. He said goodbye.

“Anywhere,” Eren answered. “Just take me far away from here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *screams at the tops of my lungs* 
> 
> i hope this translates why mikasa left him. they both, honestly, had some sort of mental break. this chapter is so painful to write, and it's terrible, but life can be like this, ruthless hits after hits after hits--and i can say from personal experience that it often is like this. i dumped a lot of personal shit into this. i dumped a lot of personal shit into this entire fic.
> 
> i honestly can't believe that this is the last past chapter. oh my god. not over yet is almost over (pun intended). i don't want to sound dramatic, but when i realized last chapter that it's the last time we see hitch and sasha and the gang, i genuinely teared up. jesus. 
> 
> also, i'm not a fan of oc's but there's genuinely nobody in canon that is as vile as sarah hale. i don't know. maybe floch has a sister.
> 
> thank you for reading, for FUCKING ONE THOUSAND (1,000!!!!!) KUDOS!! WHAT!!! i am so thankful and i could never imagine that this story would gain such an audience the second time around. gosh, thank you. thank you thank you.
> 
> see you next week,  
> nati


	33. Ode to What We've Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to my blood, sweat, and tears. the marathon of a chapter that took me nearly an entire year to write and the past 6 months to edit.
> 
> can you tell i kinda sorta really like music? as promised, here’s the last playlist for this fic. there’s literally a song in there called "[now and not yet](https://open.spotify.com/track/2WXhtZQJgwdZkSKjemT7WE?si=VF1u7Iv0RSKPjU4Zm4Y_7g)" by hammock and it’s almost too good to be true--the very words mikasa said to eren when she begged him to stay! the noy anthem maybe. highly recommend listening. it honestly made me cry. the entire playlist did. click on the pictures below or this [link](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1KPSoEc0hgIcqCZzHNZfHC?si=o9ww6Nr5RBq805VDJouD3A) to be directed to it.
> 
> as always, enjoy ♡

**:::[](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1KPSoEc0hgIcqCZzHNZfHC?si=jJjXrUOASu2_TpzP6GRpCA) :::**

**—o—**

They say nothing.

Mikasa leads him into his bedroom, his gaze fixed on the backs of her legs until she stops, turns, looks up at him. Her eyes are coy, yet vivid in the dim light. They hold him in place, move him to follow her motions when her fingers tug at the bottom of his t-shirt to roll it up along his torso and lift it over his head, only for it to be mindlessly discarded to the side. She takes in his presence, the ripples of his every breath, how they bloat and wane inside his ribcage. And then, she comes closer, closer, until her breath is at his neck. 

Everything halts. 

Her breathing, his.

They move in cursive, draw the words that cannot be said out loud with the silent sweep of their mouths: hers on his ear, his lost in the silken tresses of her hair. She smells of home. And he breathes through her lungs, feels through her hands, her skin, her busses. His face goes first, and she kisses every dimple, every ridge and curve and point. Then it's on to his chin, his throat, his clavicle, where her fingertips reach up to meet the bone. 

Fire.

She surges through him, searing, the heat of her breath stealing across his chest as she traces his scars. “So many,” she whispers. More than she remembers.

Eren sighs. “You've missed a few things.” 

She’s quiet. 

Unable to read her thoughts, nervous, he brings a hand up to the side of her face. It startles her, his hand on her cheek, the contact. Her eyes peer up at him through dense eyelashes, and he's lightheaded from staring into their depths. Because she's here. Because she's real. He's holding her. 

“Eren,” her voice seals her presence in the air, stamps it to the spaces right in front of him. A button is undone on her shirt. One more. Another. Until a sliver of naked skin stands out like a blank canvas, soon to be filled with his hand. She holds the scarred pigment of his palm to her chest, asks him, “Can you feel that?”

He can.

“It's beating so fast,” she snorts, her small nose wrinkling. Eren smiles at her laughter, his gaze softening on her face. She lifts her free hand to press it flat against the center of his chest. Her fingers pry his heart open, tendril by tendril, until it yawns utterly agape. 

“Yours too,” she tells him quietly. “Your heart’s beating fast.” 

If only she knew it’s her that makes it come alive like that.

“Kiss me.” It’s not a question nor a command. It’s the subtle palpitations of her pulse on her lips, the nuance that shifts on her features, the octave that drops in her voice. 

So he does. 

First, it’s her hand. He lifts it from his chest and kisses every notch, every fingertip, her wrist, the thumb that swipes along the edge of his mouth and grazes the tiny cut that’s still healing. She giggles when he pecks her eyelids, smiles when he kisses her nose, and then slowly, slowly, one sculpted, porcelain feature at a time, he works his way down to her mouth. But first, he takes her face in his hands, swipes his thumbs over the apples of her cheeks—pink already—and smirks at the expression on her face.

They wait.

They wait in silence, until their gravities tilt and he is physically, mentally, helplessly drawn to her. Her eyes are stars, and she is the moon that pulls at his waves, that lures the ocean within him to spur, reach out, touch her. 

They kiss, and it’s different. New. There’s a tentativeness that hints not fear, but a need to elongate every second. There’s no doubt, no dread, no resistance, only the gradual release of giving in after holding out for so long. To welcome the forbidden, to embrace the wrong with righteous arms, is to kiss like strangers who have learned to fall in love again. To kiss like they are.

She gives into him, and her lips pronounce his name, find his lashes, his nose, his ear: _Eren, Eren, Eren._ Her hand trails down his chest, his abdomen, the v-lines leading south to where it dips past the waistband of his sweatpants and finds him. She hears his breath hitch, her own at his cheek, his fingers curling in her hair as her languid strokes provoke him. His eyelids flutter, the ghost of her touch wreathing him until she’s this unfathomable entity that sparks on every expanse of his being. 

For now, silence is the melody they share, a muted prayer forming in the depths of his throat. She feels him, watches him, awestruck at the sight before her, how he’s holding himself together and still splintering apart. His forehead dips to nuzzle hers and she holds his cheek to catch him, to swallow his breathing, drink in how it deepens and deepens and deepens. Her gaze trickles down his face, every tiny shift and facet, but then seconds later his tight grip on her wrist stalls her, their lips crash together and breathless hunger is the ballad of their waltz. 

They move and coalesce, attuned to a silent symphony redolent of the glory dancers illustrate on stage. Every muscle, tendon, joint, caressed by light, the tips of fingers, the wandering of aimless, goalless want. It’s when he’s kissing down her neck that a sigh breathes through her, that her hands glide down the warmth of his torso then reach to shed the flannel top that’s clothing hers.

Her breath on his tongue, he tastes the familiarity of her air, grasps at the timeless relevance of her body in his hands. His shirt falls from her shoulders, down her arms, to the floor; a rustle as silent as the plea of her arms around him. They tumble to the bed. His arm curled beneath her, he heaves her further up so that her hair cascades his pillows, her scent bathes his bed. She’s so light, so faint, a feather, weightless whisper to be carried off by the mildest of winds. So he holds her. Holds her so that if she were to blow away, she’d take him with her. 

They pause. A moment’s gasp, the gulp of air that asks if this is really happening. His breath catches in his throat, uncertain. Then she cups his cheek, the angel, her eyes glimmering in the dim light. He kisses the palm of her hand, and in his soul, he whispers that he loves her.

And she knows.

Skin to lips, Mikasa rises to arch closer to his mouth, tides that surge to wash against him and evaporate at the heat of his tongue. The scar on her cheekbone is the beginning, and then down, down, down every slope and nook and cranny, the cradle of her hips is where the journey ends. Warm breath on her lower belly, he looks up to see her nod, then curls his fingers on the waistband of his briefs she’s been borrowing to sleep in, pulling them down her legs as she lifts her hips to help him.

“So unfair,” she says when he’s kissing down her thighs. 

Eren smiles. “It’s all fair.”

“For you.”

“And that’s bad?.”

“Yes!”

“How?

“I’m naked.”

“And?”

She sighs, feeling him kiss his way up her sternum. “I’m completely naked and you’re on top of me.”

His eyes, aligned with hers, smile at her. “Yeah, I am.”

Mikasa smiles too, smoothing his hair away from his face. She tucks it behind his ears, holds his cheeks, whispers, “What will you do?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

She pouts. “That blows. I was hoping you’d want your tongue inside me.”

Eren groans. “Stop.”

“It's true!”

“It sounds wrong when you say it like that.”

“Make me come in your mouth.”

_“Stop.”_

She laughs.

His head drops to her shoulder, feeling the tiny jolts of laughter ringing through her. “Sometimes, I wonder…”

“What?” she’s still giggling, her eyes crinkling in delight. The way they glow, how alight they are, makes his heart forget a few beats. She’s beautiful. She’s the most beautiful thing in the world. Every hope he’s ever had, every dream, is parceled within her. 

He kisses her forehead, hears her say, “What will you do?”

“Can I kiss you?”

“Says the man who just took my undies off.”

“You are the _queen_ of ruining moments.”

Laughter again. “Alright, okay. Kiss me, kiss me.”

She’s still smiling when he does. 

His hand finds her chest, and he pecks her chin, her throat, her breast and then wanders back up to her parted lips, where his tongue slips out and she tastes all of him, and all that's left of her, in their kiss. Fingers dent flesh, and she melts into his touch, clasping her hands on his shoulders when his head dips to roll a pert peak into his mouth. He tongues lightly at her hard little nub, framing the underside of her breasts with his hands and feeling her breaths rush out of her in harsh, dense whispers. 

She’s all sighs until quick, noisy pecks make her giggle when they intersperse the skin between her breasts, up and up and up and then she breathes into his mouth, “Touch me,” guiding his hand down past her navel, setting the path he’s soon to follow with his lips. His eyes close when he feels her, and then he’s promptly venerating every inch of her in his descent, running along the lines of her skin the way that rain seeps into the cracked, ancient wounds of tree trunks. 

He pauses to trace a fingertip along the bend of her waist, pressing a kiss to the rib she’d fractured in the accident. It’s fully healed now, and Eren marvels at the stubbornness of the human body, how it prevails to always heal. He lifts and kisses her leg, the back of her thigh. Mikasa sighs and allows the rest of the world to ooze away to nothing until it is all a silent dribble in the farthest depths of her mind.

Incredibility is what makes him sweep the tip of his tongue on the incipient sweat of her belly, to taste the salt and know she's really there in front of him. Vulnerability is what drives him to tease her further, just to hear her say his name, engrave her need for him in his mind. But it's love, and the sheer need he has for her, that settles between her legs, that makes his breath quiver at the sight of her. And it's her heat against his lips that makes him sigh into her, that makes her gasp before he delves his tongue and a broken, strangled whimper tangles in her throat.

Trembling lips still between her teeth, arms thrown at her sides as her fingers curl into the bed sheets. She feels him take her in, all of her, and the noise he makes is muffled into her as heat rises to his face, something hot and liquid trickling down his abdomen and pooling where it hurts _._

He hears her twisting, hears the bed sheets rustling as she squirms on her back. She's so invigorating, and he loves— _adores_ —the taste she leaves on his tongue, how familiar yet new she is to him and how it feels when she runs her nails across his scalp, when she rocks her hips so that he gives her more, savors all of her. He tastes her until she's hissing and he's skimming his hands up her stomach, feeling every rib, every groove and dip and rise before palming both her breasts. She holds the backs of his hands to keep them from moving, and she's shameless and loud, so beautifully, unbelievably loud when she arches and cries out.

Eventually, her head rolls to the side and she heaves into the pillows. Eren sees because he pulls back to check on her, relishing in how the whiteness of her skin contrasts the crimson of his bed, how the colors glow as the red slowly creeps its way onto her radiant, writhing body. It stains her lips, her cheeks, her neck. He drags his fingers down her torso, tonguing at her inner thighs as her whimpers slightly soften. But he is just as drawn by her, as he is by the aching in his being, when he drags his tongue back up her center and sucks—just how he remembers that she likes—sliding a finger, then two, inside of her.

Her noises pierce into the air, reaching octaves he hasn’t heard her reach in ages. It’s all so ancient, how she blooms, spreads open like a rose. She cards her fingers through his hair, urging, “Don't stop,” as if he'd ever dream to. His fingers curl, and a throttled gasp stretches from her mouth as a hand fists in his hair and the other curls into the sheets below her, both tugging with the force of the relief that washes over her in waves. He lets her please herself on his fingers, ride it out for as long as she needs, until she's a finished, panting, gorgeous mess, and she’s his.

She’s trying to catch her breath as he works his way back up her body, feeling her breathy mewls against his lips. He lifts her closer to him, farther off the bed, and she's so stunning when she peers down at him through half-lidded eyes, her hands laid beautifully on either side of her head in what looks like full surrender. 

Eren takes his time, memorizing the taste of every part of her body. He feels her spine curve and her back muscles clench in his hands, his own flexing around his shoulder blades as he crawls back up to meet her. And she’s so accepting, so eager for him, so starved, the one to crane her neck to capture his lips in hers and their kiss is heavier, much heavier than the ones that came before. He feels her tongue dart into his mouth, her hum when he responds, a hand slipping up his neck to slide into his hair and push him down to kiss him harder.

They kiss until they're breathless, until he breaks to whisper, “Is this—?” and she replies by sighing, “Yes.” 

Suddenly, they're unable to breathe without the other, clinging desperately to flesh and skin, and when the sun sets so that the moon can rise, she reigns over him, kissing every one of his scars as if apologizing for their presence. Her hair glides down his chest as she descends lower, and lower, and lower. 

Mikasa stops just below his waist to feel the tides of his breathing, how they crash with the seething of an endless sea, a yearning that erupts from the bottom of the ocean when it hears rumors of the surface’s light. She slides his sweatpants off and venerates every inch, every line of muscle, every hill and vale of bone as if he were a sculpture chiseled specifically for her to capture, admire, see. Then she takes him in her hand, then into her mouth, and there is a spark that strikes a foreign keg, that lights fires unknown within them. 

Eren’s chest sinks with his exhales. He holds on until he’s falling, until his vision flickers to black and then he’s pulling on her hair and she’s crawling back on top of him, rocking her hips to rub herself along his shaft, hands at either side of him, belly clenching with her thrusts.

She pants, “I'm ready.”

Her hair all spills to one side, curtaining half of her face. He runs his fingers through the tresses, bunching them behind her head with a firm tug. 

“You sure?”

Biting her lip, she nods. “I want you, I—” Her voice cracks at the end, trembling with desire. “Please.” She’s sliding back and forth, sighing into the crook of his neck, “Please,” until his tip rubs her tender point and she moans, “please, Eren.” There's no point in fighting anymore, no point. He's quick to kiss her cheek so that she turns her head and he can find her lips again, and something hollow in his heart aches as he does, something old.

Mikasa. His Mikasa. How he draws each breath solely for her. Her voice fills the air, dainty whispers that sing the hymns of his lifetime. She pulls on his shoulders, and he follows as she leads him back to the top, her back on the mattress, the pillows by their feet. He plucks a stray hair off her lips, his eyes flickering over every one of her features. Her chest swells below him, and for a moment, he merely counts her breaths and thinks of how Armin and him spent their childhoods stargazing, how his friend always found his purpose in planets, how Eren found his favorite constellations within this girl.

“It’s okay,” she smiles, with starlight in her eyes. “You could never hurt me, remember?”

“I remember.”

“I love you.”

“God, I love you.”

“I love you like the stars love the moon.”

“I love you more than you love chocolate.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Oh, it is.”

“Nope.”

“Yep.”

“Eren!”

“What?”

She giggles, covering her face. 

“Are you blushing?”

“No!”

“You're blushing.”

“No.”

“I see it.”

“Stop!”

“Look at you, you’re all pink.”

“Noooo!” she squeals, wriggling as he tries to pry her hands from her cheeks. “No more, Eren.”

He bites his lip, smiling, and she laughs, huffs, kisses the scratch on his lip, the one on his eyebrow, the bruises inflicted upon him as if her love alone were enough to erase the traces of his pain. 

On this end of the bed, the light hits their bodies in a way that makes his cast a shadow over hers, dye her skin a shade darker. She seems unreal, like a dream he's conjured from his memory, born from the desperation of years spent yearning for shapes and colors that no artist has ever managed to create, for they exist solely within her. 

His forehead on hers, in an outpour of breath: “I adore you, Mikasa. I’ll always protect you with my life, for as long as I live. I can only hope you know that.”

“Oh, Eren,” the dream sighs, then finds him again, guides him. He replaces her hand with his own, holding himself at the base before preparing to push inside her. 

“Can I?”

“Please.”

He thinks for a moment, fathoms, that this is it. Nothing can ever erase the way her eyes slide shut, her chest heaving. How he rolls his hips forward and she gasps, tosses her head back. Instinctively, she throws an arm around his shoulders, her fingertips pressed white onto his skin as he sinks himself into her in one slow, painstaking move. He catches even the faintest of shifts in her expression, watches her. And once inside, once he fills her up completely, his futile spirit comes to life with a radiant burst.

Moaning, he settles into her, he surrenders, he lets go. The feeling of her heat around him is overwhelmingly familiar and satisfying—crucial even, in the most epitomized sense. In all his life, he has never known such relief. Having her now, like this, is like coming home after traveling for centuries, the grateful sigh of parched earth after the first few drops of rain, the discovery of one's name after losing all notion of identity. All at once, he feels it. All at once, the sensations unravel and envelop him, cover them both. They fit so perfectly together, like they're molded specifically for the other, crafted so that their ends meet, and continue, and stretch on. Where he ends, she begins. Where she stops, he resumes. They are made for one another, and not another soul more.

“Eren...” she whines, fluttering lids steadying to look at him. Her eyes are hazy, pulsing with every blink. She brings her free hand to cradle the side of his face, where she swipes her thumb over the bruise on his cheek and tells him, “Make me yours.”

He closes his eyes, feels himself breathing. Her heartbeat, much like his, thrums rapidly in his own pulse. 

With a kiss, he reveals his new-found identity, inscribing it on the smoothness of her lips before commencing to make love to her. She still holds his face, his shoulders, his heart. And because his lips are parted just adjacent to hers, touching and brushing as he—very slowly—pulls back far enough to push back in, he feels her breath in his mouth and he inhales it, lets her air be the essence that fills his life. 

Her neck cranes subtly, eyes fall shut with a shuddering sigh, nails etch their pleasure on his skin. Eyebrows furrow, soft lips part, countless mantras of quiet breaths whisper in the night as their bodies move together, perfectly in sync, the evanescent wisps of her voice interluded by the heaving puffs of his lungs, the orisons of love that are hummed to his ear and stifled against his shoulder.

Every pore in his body exclaims his love for her. Her hips rise and fall in an adagio of movements, matching his motions and heightening the friction so that both of them lose. All silent gasps and stuttering eyelashes, she replies with a vibrant ringing in her soul. She loves him too. Every litany and gesture is a shining reassurance. 

Her fingertips caress every nerve end and prickled hair as they glide across the muscles of his back, down his spine, spreading apart to splay open on his ass, where she pushes down, encouraging his movements. She's moaning, throaty and breathy. Moaning for him. The sides of their noses nearly graze, the ends of his hair touch her forehead. They're skin to skin and yet too far. But then he feels her hands on his chest, her foggy voice clouding his vision.

“Get on your back.”

He takes her with him.

They roll on the bed, a quick half-pirouette and then she’s straddling his hips and lowering herself to take him in and he sees white. Back and forth, she rides him. He's hitting spots inside her he knows all too well, a sight he's seen countless times before him manifesting with her tell-tale reactions. And for a moment, it's her who claims most of the pleasure, but the satisfaction is all his. Through heavy eyes, he watches her lose herself to the sensations, her lids flickering before closing while she sways and pants out her little groans.

Eren's breath is intimate in his throat, caught so that it can't escape him yet. But when his hands grip her thighs, then her hips, and she lets them travel up her waist, lets them knead her breasts while she gives him small encouragements, he's barely clinging to his wits. His lungs contract, the awe that had lodged all air in him releasing with a helpless utterance of her name. In response, her eyes slit open, her gaze goes glassy, she rocks and throws her head back at how incredible he feels—and it's him, only him, only he can say it. Only he can wear her name on his lips so well.

Her hands roam from his chest down to his abdomen, nails carving trails across his scars—the temporary meeting the permanent, the old in harmony with the new—whence she leans forward to eclipse him and lays a hand on him for support, the other on the bed by his head as she starts bobbing, slowly, up and down. She’s potent in his hands, and she draws all faith right out of him, stealing it between her lips then freeing it back out with reverent sighs of worship. She brings a hand to his cheek, pressing their foreheads together so that they’re matching land with sky, day with night, present tense with history. 

A deep blush dyes her cheeks dark pink, roseate bursts that stain even the skin of her belly and she pulls back to gasp when she feels him go in deeper, her body tensing with a cry, and even though she's gorgeous and exposed to him completely now, she's too far, too far. Sitting, he brings her to him. Sighing, he holds her close. And when her hips move at this new angle, even the mildest of movements is enough to get a reaction out of them both.

Slow. They move so slow. Because God knows time is far too scarce between them. Eren’s lips capture hers, stifling her noises as her fingers rove to tangle in his hair, strands too short to bunch in her hands clinging to the damp nape of his neck. She wraps her legs around him, her arms around him, herself around him until she's this omnipresent force he cannot fathom, only hold and love and kiss and cherish with all his strength, all his weakness, all of him. 

With every roll of her hips, he fights the urge to buck up and meet her. Let her, he tells himself. Let her do whatever she wants. And she does. She does. Unmatched and reigning, she tightens her grip around his body and grinds herself into him. She's so gentle, so patient, so soft. Quiet whimpers hang from her lips, diaphanous murmurs of his name send his head spinning, flying, landing when she takes a fist full of his hair and tilts his head up to make him look at her. With every rut, she takes him deeper. It's all evident in his face, in hers, and he knows she's watching. His eyes close with a wince, mouth drifts open, features react and she prompts him to lose himself more, tucking his hair behind his ear and kissing the corner of his eye before taking his hands to fill them with her breasts.

She all but breaks when he brings one to his mouth, biting her lower lip to contain a helpless pant of his name. First, he kisses her, lips susurrating old promises on her skin. But when his tongue glides over her warm swells, teeth nipping collarbone then flesh, tugging at a bud before he takes it in and sucks, her head falls back, hands falling from his biceps to land behind her on the bed. Her lids scrunch shut and she relinquishes control, severs the chains that once confined her. Shamelessly, unabashed, her trembling limbs begin to beg for him.

“Please.” 

She doesn't have to plead twice. Gripping her hips, he starts thrusting. He feels her voice, her arms fling themselves around him and her hips urging his own to hasten more. He meets her deftly, with the lore of an old lover and the hunger of one too. Before he knows it, he's biting groans into her skin, sinking his teeth into her shoulder, feeling the ends of her cascading locks drape along her back and end at the center of her waist, where his arm is locked around her. Her moans get louder and raspier, and she digs her nails into him, grunting before another fervid, “ _Please._ ”

He drops her onto her back, and he's on top of her again, her arms bent around her for a second before they reach out to pull him in. It's so sweet, so pretty, how she holds his face and brings him closer, how she kisses him, how she whimpers for more. Their kiss is messy and intense but breaks when he plunges into her. Gasps, and then the motions resume. But it's so much rougher than before, far more needy. He hoists her legs around his waist, grabs her thigh and folds her leg up. Breathless and beautiful, she responds. Her voice is so light it fills his head with air, and thoughts gradually abandon him, only senses lead the way.

Her fingers seek desperately for purchase of his skin, clawing at the muscles of his arms and back, but eventually, they settle for clutching his face and thumbing at his lower lip to feel his breathing. With both her hands, she pulls him further down to meet her, kissing him with as much as herself as she can give. But soon, so soon, they're both delirious, and instincts appropriate them both. 

With every line and curve and dip of their spines, the calligraphy of their bodies creates the art that decorates the vile nature of their sin. It's when she presses her fingers to the back of his neck that he realizes there's no engagement ring. It's when she sighs her love into his mouth that he feels the scratches on his body no longer burn. It's when she keeps finding his lips to kiss him like he's intoxicating that he knows it in his bones: she's his, he's hers. He always will be.

Mikasa's so lost, surrendering to him fully. And when her body squirms to welcome more, when she mewls into their kiss before her head falls to the side and her bottom lip disappears between her teeth, her little noises begin to crawl up her throat and rise in pitch. Her arms fall from him, and she lets him see what he's doing to her, lets him see her features strain and strands of her hair fall across her cheek and her body accept everything he's giving. And maybe she's just as far gone as him, as driven and relieved because he starts to feel her tighten, her response when he gives more. 

Falling back on his legs, Eren pulls her to him so that she drags along the bed sheets. Breathing heavy, with his hair wisping down his face, he can barely keep his eyes open, skin burning so hot he knows he’s just as flushed as she is. He’s all fire and color, heaving sweat and starfall with shards of cosmic light beading on his chest, shimmering over every inhale, exhale, bruise and scar. Mikasa’s so bright below him, glowing and winding with a finger clenched between her teeth. Words from her aren't possible or even necessary anymore. He deciphers her desires on the crystal sheen of her skin, on the ruddiness of her cheeks and lips and chest and gives her exactly what she wants from him; does her harder, hoists her ankle on his shoulder, pushing in as far as he can go. 

Gasping, he makes love to the only woman he has ever loved and then wonders why his heart bursts in his chest, why tears cling to her lashes and sting in his own eyes, why his muscles ache but carry him through it, why she feels so breathtaking and amazing and he has to toss her ankle off his shoulder to fall onto her again, just to taste her voice inside his mouth and have her throw her arms around his neck. She says his name again, again, again and no other prayer has ever sounded sweeter, no other mantra has ever sparked his faith. She's always been a shade brighter, a tinge more radiant than the rest, the one brilliant burst of color in his world of black and white and gray. She is, and always will be, the exception.

She still holds him like she did seconds before, but when he buries his face into her neck and moans, she holds him tighter. He's getting close, too close to losing it, but he holds out until she's the one that's coming first.

It doesn't take long. Moments later, her voice gets lost in her gasps, her eyes roll back and a strong shudder courses through her. Her back arches off the bed, the slick surface of her chest pressed taut against him as his palm leaves her thigh to smooth her hair back over her head. His breaths are hot on her cheek, his hand fisting in her hair as she pushes through her high. But soon, he's just as lost as she is, and when she clutches his hand, rests it by her head and voices her consent for him to finish, he follows right along.

Her legs encase him and refuse to let him out, so he's tragically forgotten in her, falling apart in every way. Soul, heart, and essence, he spills himself inside, and as the shock waves break through him, he muffles his cries into the bed. Mikasa gasps, her hands feverishly imploring, and by the way they scramble to carry all his pieces, he knows he's broken her too.

Twitches tear their bodies apart, and they share each other's bliss, each other's pain, each other's beings until suddenly, they're two bodies and one frantic, beating heart. It all culminates into one final, blinding burst, until there's nothing but a thread left of the link that binds them. Weeping skins lose their energy, the tired curtains of eyelids close. The grand spectacle of their affair retreats with a final bow, and thus the agony ends, the torture grips at their bones no longer.

Relief shouldn’t hurt this much.

Mikasa shivers like she's cold—the type of cold that frosts the insides. Eren prays his sweat will warm her, that the flames that burn within him will thaw her soul. Tears drip from the corners of her eyes, and he feels them ooze to the side of his hand, feels them trickle onto his palm and soak the scar that lays there. Silently, she cries, and he thinks of how she'd wept their final night together, how it had been this same muted suffering that had ripped them apart. There's nothing he can say, so he just holds her, offers her no words but all his love. Every inch of him wanes with depletion, exploited all throughout, but he doesn't dare pull out of her for fear that all will vanish as soon as their connection ends. 

He can't bear it, not now. He can't bear losing her again. At least not tonight, at least not this moment. Please, God, just this once. 

_Keep her with me. Make her stay._

Let her stay with him tonight. Let him have this. 

_Please, don't take her away._

Breathless, both of them collapse, and she doesn't let go of him, not even for a second, as if she physically just can't. Guilt slowly overtakes him, old demons seethe with their mistakes. He's tainted her, but she's guilty and accepting. With his weight falling on top of her, he knows it's hard for her to breathe. But she doesn't let go. She doesn't. She holds on to him with all that's left of her. He feels her chest rising below him, filling and expanding like a small balloon, and perhaps this is them too: two willing victims of suffocation.

He wonders what more they could ever do to be more helpless. But as the thoughts begin to form, she runs her fingers down his shoulder blades, places her hand over a hollow dimple on his lower back, and turns her mouth to his ear, her breaths embedding them into the solid earth. Eyes closed, he floats above the reaches of reality, drifting off to the nothingness of exhaustion and fading from existence in the safety of her arms. He dwindles, weak and spent, the fragile flicker of his spirit dying.

“I adore you, Eren,” are the words that bring him back to life.

**—o—**

Mikasa wakes in the middle of her sleep some hours later. She's not aware of the time. 

There's no light save for the lamp on the bedside table, which bathes the crimson sheets of the bed she lays on with a dim, yellow glow.

It's raining.

Rain is the first thing she hears, soft pitter-patters landing on the city. Then, it's his breathing. And it's steady. Deep. Like waves lapping on the seashore. His exhales are the hiss of water rolling on the sand, the inhales the calm retreat that tug the waves back to the ocean.

She closes her eyes. Listens.

The faint _pat, pat, pat_ of nature tapping on the window glass recounts an old tale she feels accustomed to, but that is also somehow new. It's like she's in two places at once. Someplace foreign, someplace known. It's the weight of his arm around her waist that she really wakes up to. She plucks over with goosebumps, the exposed skin of her chest barren of the blanket that covers them both.

With a few drowsy blinks, she turns her head and finds him sleeping on his stomach with the pillow hiding half of his face. Mikasa doesn't know why she holds her breath for a second, but she does, and the rest of the world seems to hold its own as well in admiration.

She smiles.

Eren. Her Eren. He looks so peaceful in his sleep. She doesn't want to move yet, conscious of his arm around her waist, the anchor that keeps her here, keeps her close to him. He's so gorgeous. Even with the healing scratches on his face, he is. She brings a hand up to his cheek, tracing the outlines of his jaw, the soft shapes of his lips, marveling. His breath is warm on her skin, humid with life.

She swipes his hair away from his eyes and runs a thumb over the arch of his brow, eyeing the cut that has yet to disappear completely. Turning over on her tummy, she props herself up on her elbows and kisses the small contusion, then his eyelid, then his cheek, his shoulder, the cleft of his chin, and the freckled tip of his nose. He's lost in sleep, but the weight of his arm slipping off her causes his breathing to stir. It’s amazing that she hasn’t woken him, but Eren’s always slept like a rock.

Mikasa watches him, amused, wrinkling her nose with quiet laughter when he frowns and scratches his nose, right where she'd pecked him. Her touch must be tickling him, so she's careful to wait, to kiss him lightly, just gossamer enough so that she leaves no trace, makes no sound. She kisses every scratch, every dimple, every feature of his face and fawns over how incredible it is that everything she loves can be compacted into the small, mortal body of a single man. All of it, alive. The entire universe breathing right under her fingertips.

“Eren,” she whispers, with no hope for a response. “Thank you. For everything, thank you. This has been the greatest night of my life.”

She imagines the smug grin that would split his sleepy mouth if he had heard her, but the simplicity of his slumber is answer enough. She kisses his lips, traces the curve of his ear and the length of his eyelashes, all the while hearing the rain outside as perfectly as if it were landing on her skin, feeling the waves of his breaths as if they were flooding her ankles and sinking her feet into the sand. She closes her eyes and holds her forehead to his temple, breathing him in like if she could absorb him, keep him in her for the rest of her life. 

Is it possible to die from happiness? Mikasa feels so full, she fears that she may pop. Incredible, really, how her skin contains her flesh, how her flesh contains her bones, how her bones contain her organs and her spirit and her soul when she feels as vast as an entire galaxy. Immortal and awake.

She pulls her pillow as close to his as it can get and lays on her side to stare at him for what feels like a blissful chunk of eternity. This time, she keeps her hands to herself, blinking away the little tears that bead at the corners of her eyes. She goes to throw her leg over Eren's, when she feels something sharp jab her thigh. It's the corner of a book. 

Sitting up to retrieve it, Mikasa smiles softly. It's _Illusions_. She'd made Eren read it to her before falling asleep, promising to pick up where he left off and read to him in turn, but she obviously dozed off. What did Eren do once he realized she was sleeping? Did he stare at her like this? Did he kiss her? Did he marvel at her features such as she does to him now? Did he link an arm around her sleeping form to ensure that she wouldn't leave him, fallen asleep to her breaths just as she'd fallen asleep to the sound of his voice?

Mikasa wishes that the rain would last forever, that the winds would blow the rest of the world away, that the waters would deluge the planet until there's nothing left of it but this bed, these walls, this room, him and her together. But time passes, as it always does, bowing its head in pretty apologies because it's only doing what it’s made for. And for once, it's alright. It's alright. Everything is as it should be, and Mikasa accepts it with outstretched arms.

She leans over him to reach the lamp by his end of the bed. Careful not to lay on him, she sets the book on the bedside table and then switches off the light. The room attunes to utter darkness, save for a few lights reflecting on the windows from the city outside. Laying back down, she reclaims her spot beside him, resting her head so close to his their noses nearly touch. She finds his hand, takes it in her own and brings it up to her lips to kiss it, shimmying until she's close enough to him that she can feel his body heat mesh with her own and link their legs together. 

They're tangled up in one another, her skin and scent decorating his bed sheets, claiming her rightful throne among the empire of his bed. With each of his exhales, she inhales. With each of his inhales, she exhales. They breathe one another, and she falls asleep like that: with the rain dribbling, their heartbeats echoing, the noises of life reverberating with her hand in his hand and her soul in his breath.

_I’m home._

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is going to be a bit of a lengthy author’s note and i apologize in advance for that. i’m sure this is the last thing you want to read after all that.
> 
> first of all, i hope hitch and sasha have thick walls. and if they don’t, hitch would be that “good for her” meme anyway. it’s fine.
> 
> second, HUGE thank you to winter for spending literally hours betaing this chapter with me. she also writes eremika fics under the username mikasuhdude, and you can read her stories [here](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikasuhdude). thanks again, winter ♡ 
> 
> third, this chapter was a damn feat to write. ya girl (me) added a whole new position in there for unholy reasons. also, don’t think they’re holding these for very long. mikasa is so hypersensitive to eren that she probably would’ve finished like 5 times, which sounds painful. she’s strong and can take him but……………with a man like that……………
> 
> they say a love scene is the epitome of a slow burn, and for noy, it absolutely is. them making up after so much time apart gave me the space to pour in the past 200k words of story, who they are as characters, and what it is for them to come back together in one night of reconnection. their contrasts--celestial and sea, the two things that made up armin and is their biggest loss--meet at some kind of horizon here. the entire thing is a giant, cosmic, boisterous painting of a ballet performance. but that’s noy eremika.
> 
> also, listen, i’m rarely proud of my writing, but the two visuals in this chapter where she pushes down on his ass while he’s moving in her, and when she pulls his hair to make him look at her as she makes love to him are my personal favorites for blatantly obvious reasons. both scenes were there years ago when the story was first up and i didn’t edit them at all, but the way mikasa marionets eren is so satisfying to revisit. he’s such an intense, blazing character and she just knows how to make him crumble in her hands. like yes, girl, WRECK HIM!!!!!! 
> 
> finally, thank you for the time and love you give this story. i can’t believe the memes you create on twitter (great way to make me laugh until i cry, by the way) and every other form of praise--including, and most especially, your comments and messages. hearing from you makes it all worth it. thank you a million times. i’ll stop the gush now and spare your souls, promise.
> 
> see you next week ♡  
> nati


	34. The Long Road Home

Her eyelids drift open just enough to catch a glimpse of the morning light. It filters in through the windows, wrapping her surroundings in a faint, golden embrace. She sighs herself awake, closing her eyes again with a subsequent inhale and swelling of her chest. 

She breathes. And she listens.

The city thrums with approaching noontime, an interval between errands and work granting a rare spell of peace. It’s when she exhales the vestiges of slumber that she feels the weight of his body beside hers, that she turns her head to look and finds him there.

His back is to her.

Slowly, her fingers rise to meet the naked line of his spine, tracing every coil of muscle and vertebrae, the little dusting of freckles at his lower back. He’s warm to the touch, and she’s pressing kisses to his shoulder blades as he stirs with a breathy groan. When he turns to her and his eyes peel open, bleary hints of green and blue with gold unveil to greet her face.

They stare.

Then laughter tears the girl apart, and she’s kissing the tip of his nose in between giggles.

“What’s so funny?” Eren murmurs sleepily, the whisper of a smile crossing his lips.

“Nothing,” Mikasa says, pushing his hair back away from his face. As she runs her fingers through the tresses, her mind drifts to the previous night, the hours filled with passion and love and sweat. She turns ruddy in the face, and Eren snorts at her sudden expression, leaning in to kiss the tippy top of her mouth.

His lips pull away from hers only enough to allow space for him to breathe that he loves her.

She says she loves him too. 

And there’s freedom in the declaration. Infinity and truth. 

Moments bleed into existence, nuance by nuance, breath by breath. Gradually, they return from a night of transcendence. Eren sees her and she is there, still there, reminding him that he’s no longer yearning, that they’ve trespassed the six-year construction of their time apart and landed in this radiant now. 

His hand climbs up the junction of her ribcage, calloused touch splayed open on her sternum to feel every sway of brightness and breath like he’s catching sunlight in the palm of his hand. Mikasa muses at how narrow she is in his grasp, at how vulnerable he leaves her when he kisses parts of her that tickle all the way to the bone. The way Eren loves now is so different. He’s slower, more patient, no longer blazing through the rush he had when they were younger. 

Mikasa marvels at the certainty of his presence before her, the glowing guarantee of every living fabric sewn together to create him. Reaching out to feel that promise, she trails the raw borders of his skin from his shoulder to his ribs, his waist, his hip bone, her eyes following the holy places she ventures to touch. And she thinks of the creations Eren fathoms, the paintings and the drawings, how they pour out of him when he is art himself. She’s drawing out the taut spans of muscle at his lower abdomen, the thatch of brown hair that leads south, when she tugs away the bed sheets on the side of his hip and simpers at the small tattoo he has there.

“What does this say, again?” she asks, running a fingertip over the small, squiggly line.

Eren snorts. “I have no idea.” 

And he loves the way she laughs at that. 

Their room becomes a tangle of bed sheets and limbs, of giggles and drowsy murmurs. It’s her radiance when Mikasa yawns and stretches her arms over her head, when her naked body bends towards Eren and implores him to make love to her again. She’s wilting back onto the bed sheets, all hums and tiny sighs with her hair a tousled mess. And Eren kisses her—again, and again, and again—until his mouth remembers the taste of every corner of her body and he vows to never forget. 

Drawing circles on the soft skin of her belly, he asks her what she wants.

You.

She says, “I want you.”

Their home is their stage as they dance and cavort. It’s her back arching like an altar when he’s tasting the remnants of last night between her thighs, renewing all the vows they promised yesterday. It’s the pillars of his arms flexed at either side of her when he dips to kiss the top notch of her spine, when she echoes that she wants him and he has her gasping loudly into the pillows. It’s the smell of pancakes with chocolate chips permeating the spaces they inhabit, the white flour streaks on their clothes and cheeks from a giggle-ridden duel. 

And when their bellies are full and their bodies grow tired of waltzing within each other, they start a bath, melt into the heat of the water, and make love over and over again. It’s a ritual they practice all morning to cling to one another, surpassing the limitations of their bodies to reach the soul. 

**—o—**

“One, two, three… aaaaand, four.”

“Four?”

“Mhm.”

“What about this one?” Eren traces his fingertip over a tiny scar on his chest. Mikasa gasps softly.

“Five,” she says. He smirks at her little nose crinkle. “How’d you get this?” 

“Pizza.”

“Pizza?”

“Yeah,” Eren laughs. “Sash made some and I tried to bite into it too soon.” Mikasa’s eyes widen at that. She seems totally amused. “I guess sauce fell on me. It literally fucking burned me.”

The girl laughs. “Only you, Eren.”

He smiles. “Only me.”

Mikasa hums quietly, tipping her head sideways and counting more of his scars. Her fingers sink into the water to touch the one on his lower belly. “This one. Accident?”

Eren nods. 

“And this one.” She kisses the one on his bicep, breathing, “Accident?”

“No,” he says, smoothing a damp lock of hair behind her ear when she pulls back to look at him. “That one’s from a fight.”

“Oh, so fight.”

“Yep.”

“And this one here.” Her lips meet the scar above his brow. He closes his eyes when she kisses it. “I remember this one. From when you fell playing with Armin.”

“So how many is that?”

“Um. Seven.”

“Wow.”

“Eight,” she says, lifting his right hand from the water to trace a fingertip over the gash on his palm. Little droplets trickle around the damaged flesh and dribble down his forearm. “This one,” she’s whispering now. “Accident.”

Eren’s quiet, watching the way her features fall. She seems to be recalling how he’d gotten that one: from ripping her out of the wreckage with his bare hands. He doesn’t let her delve too deeply into her thoughts, though, capturing her attention by cradling the side of her face.

“This one,” he says, passing his thumb over the scar on her cheekbone. “Accident.”

Mikasa smiles faintly. Her cheeks are still red and glowy from making love.

Breathy, spent, she turns to rest her back against him. Her figure sighs into his, pores breathing steam and fire. She’s hot to the touch, wrapping him around her so that they blend together. All safe and tight within his arms, she hums happily. And that is when Eren knows that it’s time.

Before he can start, though, she says, “Did I ever tell you which one’s my favorite? The scar on your chest, from when the paramedics shocked you to bring you back.”

Eren doesn’t speak.

“It’s the reason you’re still here,” she tells him. He can feel her breathing on his chest, right above that scar. “So it’s my favorite.”

“Miki,” he breathes into the shell of her ear. Her eyes are closed, lashes damp and clumped together.

“Hmm?”

“Do you remember…”

She takes his hands in hers, lacing their fingers together. “Remember what?” Her voice is sweet, innocently oblivious to the burden he is to set free.

He waits.

Then finally pronounces, “Remember what Mom had?”

Mikasa tenses. Eren tries to ignore it, closing his eyes. 

“Yes, I do,” she says eventually, and gives nothing more. She waits for him to speak again. 

“Leukemia.” The word is heavy and alive, syncing itself with him. It is his state. His being. What takes him and what took his mother. He sighs out the rest, “I have it, too.”

Mikasa’s back muscles stiffen against him, a small electric current that shocks her. Eren hears her breath hitch, feels her petrify before unwinding, slowly, only enough so that she can turn to look at him.

There’s already tears in her eyes.

“I knew it,” she whispers, her lips trembling. “I knew this was going to happen.”

Promptly, Eren holds her face in his hands, thumbs pressed to her cheeks so that they dampen with the tears that are so quick to fall. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry,” and he doesn’t know what else to say, for she makes him want to live, makes his heart reverberate victory songs _._

But Eren knows that with time, he is only getting sicker. The same way Mom eroded until there was nothing left of her—despite all treatment, all effort and love and prayer. That is his life now, his state: eroding. And there’s so little they can do about it. There’s nothing they can do about it.

He looks into Mikasa’s eyes. They are sad and raw, and they leave him speechless. What more is there to say? He is going to seek treatment, he is going to get the help he needs, but Mom did that and she didn’t even last. So what could he possibly promise? What could he possibly tell her? 

“No,” Mikasa whimpers. “This can’t be happening.” But it is. And it is. And they both know there’s no amount of pretending or ignoring that can fix that.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, like it’ll change anything.

Mikasa burrows close to his chest, and soon enough, she’s sobbing. Eren holds her, and he feels himself begin to cry as well. His hands press her head against his heart, reminding her with every quiet beat that they still have today, they still have this moment. She still has him.

Silence cradles them, her quiet little sobs matching his silent tears. Eren has never cried for himself until now, never mourned for himself instead of others. He sighs and glances upward at… _God? Armin? Mom?_ Whoever’s listening, he supposes, and he says, “Please forgive me,” to Mikasa, to all of them. For being raw, for fucking up, for feeling too deeply and immensely—forgive him. His existence has been one filled with endless turmoil, and he wonders what his life might have been had things been easier for him, had Mom never been sick and Armin never gotten in that car with him and Dad never left. Had God’s existence proven itself to him at an earlier age. 

Who would he be? 

Mikasa lifts her head to kiss him, her fingertips at his chest, his scars—everything he is for her. She could count every breath coming in and out of him, but she’s been with him long enough to know exactly just how many and how much makes him up. 

She kisses him again, and again, and again. And it is amazing, how every kiss still feels like the first, how timeless Mikasa feels like that. At that moment, Eren contemplates the possibility of rewiring all he knows so that it moves forward, no longer backwards, no longer living in the past. Making a future, even in sickness, how does one do it? He never did that even in health.

_“Having an illness does not exclude you from the right to have a life.”_

So who will he be?

It is up to him, he thinks now, kissing Mikasa, holding Mikasa, loving Mikasa. It is up to him. When he is gone, when the hymns of his life no longer ring in this planet, he hopes his place in the universe will be a bright one. Because he lived, and he was here, and existing is enough to be remembered. Mom would always tell him that to console him as a child. And he wonders what she would say if she was still here, if she knew he’s gotten what she was always so terrified of him inheriting. And what would she say to Mikasa?

Nothing. That’s the thing about death. There’s nothing anyone can say to make it kinder or lighter.

“We will be forever,” he tells the girl, and she chuckles at his cheesiness, snot bubbling from her nose.

“Yes,” Mikasa smiles, pressing their foreheads together to breathe him in. She sighs onto his lips, “We will be.”

When she pulls back to look at him, she stares into the green and blue of his eyes, the specks of gold that have always reminded her of the sun like tiny shards of light that break through the maze of trees and oceans. She’s always thought his eyes were so infinite, reminiscent of the wilderness of everything untamed, such a contrast to the eternal night sky of her own eyes. 

Vestiges of their childhood flash through her mind, and Mikasa smells the grass, the leaves, the sweat and heat of a summer day. She hears the remnants of conversations, the echoes of their laughter, and the giggles that would erupt from Armin’s little body as he spoke of the outside world, his pointer finger aimed skyward at the stars.

And that is when she tells him, “We must go back.”

Eren stares at her. “Go back where?”

“Home,” she says. 

Home.

His expression clears at the suggestion, but then a frown quickly shadows his face. Eren goes to look away but Mikasa catches him, seizing his face in her hands. She turns it gently so that he’ll look at her, and she tells him, “I know you’re scared, Eren. But you need to find forgiveness.”

“I can’t face him,” he says, referring to Armin’s grandfather. “Not after what happened to him, not after what I did.”

“But that is why you have to. You have to learn to forgive yourself.”

“What if he won’t forgive me?”

“There is only one way of knowing that.”

“But…”

“You have a lot in common,” Mikasa laughs lightly. “You’re both so stubborn.” Her face is pink, still wet with tears. “He’s sick too, you know. Grandpa Arlert.”

“Mik…” Eren clasps her wrists, pulling them away from him. “I’m scared to go back,” he tells her simply. Mikasa’s quiet, so he adds, “Will this make you happy?”

“Yes,” she answers. “It will.”

“Alright, then,” Eren nods. “I’ll do it, then. For you.”

“Do it for yourself,” then her lips are on his before he can answer.

He loves her. With everything he is, Eren loves her. He has loved her for so long that he has forgotten how to love himself. It seems that, for as long as he can remember, he has made her the sole purpose, the excuse that justifies his errors. Because she is alive the same time he is, his life has been livable. Take her out of the picture, and what does he have?

Nothing. Because he’s made nothing else for himself.

He can’t speak, for he is overwhelmed with want. So many wants and needs, it’s as if he is not a dying man. Desires keep on birthing within him, imploring for more seconds to his life, more moments added to his existence. He tries to breathe and he inhales her, her scent pouring into his lungs, a scent she has carried since childhood, all the redolence of his past. His fingers tangle in her hair, the bath water rippling with their every motion. And he begs. By kissing her back, by grasping at the damp bareness of her body, he begs her to teach him, teach him how to live so fully that he learns to live for himself. 

**—o—**

Their rented car zips through traffic, the steering wheel in Mikasa’s hands shifting only slightly, for the course home is a straight and lengthy one.

Eren sits in the passenger seat, his head against the window, eyes lulling shut at the reverberations against his skull. He feels so small, like a child snuggled atop his mother’s lap, everything in him craving the safety of that comfort. It feels so foreign now. He thinks of what the world was like before—of that time, so long ago, when there was calm, when cancer didn’t exist and nothing bad ever happened. A time so pristine and far away it almost feels like it never belonged to him.

With his eyes closed, Eren sees himself, a kid with a dirty soccer ball and unruly hair who giggled much too loud and got too many scrapes on his knees from falling. Back then, forever seemed like a real promise. But then Mommy got sick, and Armin got sick, and Dad lost his patience, and Mikasa’s parents got divorced, and Mikasa got pregnant, and Mikasa left—and then… it all changed _._ God didn’t bother so much with trying to prove itself anymore. Everyone, God, they just left. And they left behind the boy with the soccer ball, the one who was forced to grow up by himself, to make up for their absences when he was too young to have to do that.

Eren opens his eyes. 

The sunlight blares in through the windshield, fiery and bright. It bathes his face, piercing his irises. He blinks, and the images disappear—Mom, Dad, Armin, they all vanish. And then, before he knows it, they are pulling into the driveway of their old home.

Tall, grand, aged; the house stands among a wreath of leaves and branches. Trees circumscribe the area, protecting it from the beginnings of a setting sun. The giant porch lies vacant, no lights save for one on the first floor aglow through a window, the only indication of life within. 

“We’re here,” breathes Mikasa, and she seems just as stunned as Eren. Her hand does not move from the ignition, where it had turned the key and killed the engine. The car’s lively hum is swallowed by silence, no noise save for their breathing and the occasional squawking and twittering of birds. They both stare onwards at the house they used to live in with Armin, and, after a moment, Mikasa says, “We have to go in.”

“Yeah.” Eren swallows. He can feel his heart in his throat.

The girl goes first. She opens the car door beside her and jumps out, so Eren does the same—all the while feeling lightheaded and weak. He doesn’t know whether it’s nerves or what, but his entire body aches, so much so that he lets out a small groan when he lands on his feet, wincing.

Mikasa looks at him. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he tries to smile, but the pain is too much. “I’m fine.”

She rushes to his side, clutching his arm in her hands. “Eren,” she whispers.

He realizes he is out of breath.

“I said I’m fine, Mik,” he laughs lightly, kissing the skin between her brows where she holds a frown. “Don’t you worry about me.”

Mikasa nods imperceptibly, and waits for him to catch his breath. When they are both ready, they begin to make their way towards the house. Leaves and melting snow squelch underfoot, fallen branches snapping below the soles of their shoes. They crackle onwards, onwards, until they’re climbing the steps to the front door.

It feels so weird to knock on a door that once belonged to them. Mikasa looks over at Eren and he gives his bravest smile for her, which she returns far more sincerely. She raps her fist once, twice, and waits.

They wait.

Seconds pass, nothing but the song of birds and the swaying of tree branches playing around them. Mikasa knocks again, and, this time, they hear footsteps. They are distant and rushed, tiny before they grow bigger and mightier, getting closer. 

They both straighten when a stout, old woman appears at the door. She opens it, only a sliver, and peeps her face in through the crack.

“Yes?” she rasps.

“My name is Mikasa Ackerman,” the girl answers, motioning to herself and then to Eren. “This is Eren Jaeger. We are old friends of Mr. Arlert’s. We would like to see him, please.”

The woman frowns, eyeing them up and down. “Was he expecting you?”

“Yes,” Mikasa answers quickly. “He… We used to live here with his grandson.”

Eren stares at her, unsure as to why she is giving away so much information. She must know what she is doing, though, because the old lady’s frown disappears, an expression of clarity brightening her wrinkled face.

“Ah, yes,” she chirps. “Eren and Mikasa. Sir Arlert speaks a great deal of you two. Come in, come in! What a lovely surprise.”

She removes her hunched little figure from the way, and the floor creaks as they cross the threshold. Eren is shocked, for the house still smells exactly the same, exactly how he’d left it.

His eyes survey his surroundings, and before he can gauge what exactly has changed—which is not much, anyway—the woman introduces herself as Maria.

“I am Sir Arlert’s caretaker,” she smiles, the folds of her lids swallowing her squinted eyes. “I was just about to prep dinner. Would you care to join us?”

“We would love that,” Mikasa says, and that is when they hear Grandpa Arlert’s voice.

“Maria,” he calls from somewhere in the distance, and Eren’s heart stops. “Who’s there?” And he sounds so… fragile.

“Oh!” the old lady yelps, jumping slightly. “Silly me, I forgot all about him.”

Despite himself, Eren has to fight back a small laugh. Mikasa’s smiling, looking over her shoulder at him. She gives him a tiny nod of assurance. And she’s so brave, he thinks. Braver than him.

It takes a few moments, but finally, Maria reappears, pushing Grandpa Arlert’s wheelchair. He sits kind of slumped forward, his eyes cast to the floor, an oxygen tank attached to the side of one of the wheels, worming out a thin tube that connects to his spotted nose and curls behind his ears. She wheels the old man until he is right before them. Even Mikasa seems to be holding her breath.

“Gramps,” she says, and the old man raises his eyes slowly, blinking.

He stares at them.

“My,” comes his gasp. “Look at you.”

Mikasa sighs happily, tears welling in her eyes. “Hi,” she whispers.

Eren can’t speak.

His heart feels like it’s swelling, and he realizes how much he has truly missed him. Gramps looks like an aged version of Armin, with only a few strands of white hair coating his head. 

Maria wipes at her eyes, and Eren notices everyone but him is crying. Even Gramps’ little eyes have a sheen glow. It pricks at his heart, the way the old man reaches out a hand that Mikasa is so quick to take in her own.

“Miki,” he says, his voice a breath above a whisper. “You are so beautiful.”

“Thank you,” she sniffles. “I’ve missed you so much, Gramps.”

Eren stares at all of them, now swarmed with a sudden, immense urge to run away. This is too much. The house is too much. Them crying is too much. Armin—he’s not here—and it’s all too much. But before he can even think of doing anything, Grandpa Arlert’s eyes are on him.

“Will you join us for dinner?” he seems to be asking him. Mikasa looks up at Eren. Everyone does.

After a moment, he finds his voice. “Yes,” he answers quietly. “We’ll be more than happy to join you.”

“Good,” the old man grins. He looks up at Mikasa. “Because we have much catching up to do.”

**—o—**

Dinner consists of some sort of meat stew, boiled potatoes, vegetables, and buttered bread. It kind of makes Eren scoff, because surely a man Gramps’ age shouldn’t be eating such hearty foods at such heavy portions, but nothing’s stopping him from chomping down on a plate full of food, and then a second.

Mikasa and Maria chat away at the table, laughing softly in between mouthfuls. The old woman is speaking of all sorts of adventures she has had in her life, even ones she’s had with Grandpa Arlert, and Eren wonders if perhaps she’s been more than just his caretaker, if there’s a fraction of romantic love laced in there somewhere. Gramps pitches in here and there, adding his own commentary and stories. It’s a tender sight, seeing them all yapping away so happily. But Eren can't help but feel direly out of place. 

He stares down at his plate of untouched food, all their voices blending into the background. He’s not hungry. Suddenly, Mikasa’s little laugh pierces his ears, Grandpa Arlert’s chuckles irritates him, and Maria’s loud cackle overwhelms him. 

Eren winces. 

How can they all laugh so freely after everything that's happened? Armin isn’t here, and he should be. He should be an adult, laughing with them, speaking of his own adventures. But he’s not. And it’s all his fault, all Eren’s fault.

“Excuse me,” he stands suddenly, the chair rasping back behind his legs.

All eyes land on him.

He opens his mouth. No words come out.

So he leaves.

His feet carry him to the front porch, and the ache in his bones is so severe he cannot go on any longer. He wants to dart into the woods, just keep going and going until his legs give out. But he stops right where he’s at and plops down on the steps with his face in his hands.

Minutes pass, and he doesn’t move. The wind howls around him, everything’s so cold, the sun no longer in the sky. It’s dark out, so dark that he barely sees Grandpa appearing silently behind him, the porch light suddenly aglow.

Eren jumps to his feet when he hears the wheelchair stop near his back. 

They are alone.

“I…” he begins, but Grandpa Arlert holds up a hand to stop him.

“It’s alright,” the old man says. “Sit.”

Eren does as he is told.

“I’m unsure as to where I should begin,” Gramps sighs after a brief pause, holding a hand to his heart. “I’m afraid your visit has surprised me.”

“I’m sorry.” Eren’s eyes are unable to meet his. “We shouldn’t have come.”

“But you’re here, aren’t you?” He doesn’t see, but the old man smiles at him. “Tell me, Eren. Why is that?”

He’s silent for a while, until he finds the courage to meet Grandpa Arlert’s gaze. His eyes are droopy and heavy with experience, carrying a lifetime. And he knows he owes it to the old man, owes him an explanation. An apology.

“Gramps, I…” Eren begins, but he is at a loss for words. The redolence of this home, of this town, it reminds him too much of what he has fought so hard to forget. He barely manages to muster, “I guess I’ve come to apologize.”

“Apologize?” Silver eyebrows rise in mild shock. “Apologize for what?”

 _“Everything,”_ Eren laments, tears stinging in his eyes. Already. He swallows down the burgeoning lump in his throat and says through it, “I’m sorry for what happened to Armin, and I’m sorry that I never apologized sooner. I never even spoke to you again after he died, and I am so sorry about that.” He pauses to check on the old man, but his expression is ambiguous, so he continues, “I’ve lived all these years with so much guilt. I always ask myself whether Armin would’ve survived the surgery and been able to live a full life. But I took that from him. I took him from all of us. And instead of owning up to it, I cowered. I ran away. I hid and I pushed you and Mikasa away. You were all I had left—my family—and I did that to you.”

“Son…”

“I’m just…” Eren’s voice quivers. He wants to stop, to contemplate fleeing again, but this time he has to stay. He has to be brave. He has to say, “I… I am so sorry for all the pain I know I’ve caused you. Armin, he was so bright, he had so much to do still and if only he would’ve put on that damn seatbelt, if he hadn’t been bouncing around all excited to go to the beach, maybe—” 

His bottom lip disappears between his teeth, the tears finally spilling. Gramps’s expression changes, but Eren pushes out before he can speak, “Maybe he’d still be here, Gramps. I think about him every day. I see his face whenever I close my eyes, I see him everywhere. I can’t let it go, how he looked at me as he died. I held him while he bled to death, and I couldn't do anything but watch him. Fuck, I couldn’t do anything. And that’s the last thing he saw. Me, so fucking helpless, not knowing how to save him. I couldn’t save him, I couldn’t save Mom. I can’t even save myself.”

“Eren—”

“I’m sick, Gramps,” he sputters, the truth coming out in a ragged breath. “I have what killed my mother. I’ve been wanting to die for so long but now… Now, I am so scared. Is this how Armin felt? Is this my punishment? I don’t want to die. There’s so much I need to fix, so much I have to do. I’m so fucking scared. I’m just—”

Eren sobs, covering his eyes with his wrists in a last attempt for composure. And he looks like a little boy. So helpless, so tired of carrying this all on his own. Through his weeping, he hears the wheelchair move closer, and then a gentle hand lands atop his head, startling him.

He looks up. Grandpa Arlert is crying.

“My poor Eren,” he croaks, tears spilling from his own eyes. “I never blamed you.”

Eren gasps for breath. “Really?”

“I never blamed you for what happened to my grandson. I never blamed you for a damn thing. I would forgive you, but there is nothing to forgive.”

“God,” Eren shakes his head, closing his eyes. “How can you say that?”

“Eren, listen to me,” he’s told. “I know you don’t believe in God, but there is a holy reason why Armin is gone and we are still here. You’ve still got life left in you, you’ve got breath. Dammit, that’s so important.” Gramps clenches his fist, shakes it with vigor. “We must forgive ourselves for who we are, what we've done and what we’ve seen. A life spent making mistakes, no matter how horrible, is a life lived. You must live, Eren. As a dying man, I am telling you: the greatest gift you can give those you love is to live.”

Eren sighs. Without another word, he takes Gramps’ hand in his own, and he holds him. Holds what’s left of Armin—this breathing, living, limb of his best friend. And he doesn’t let go. Of Armin or Gramps. He doesn’t let them go. He holds on until the sibilance of wind fuses to white noise, until the moon glints through the cracks of clouds and Maria comes out with some tea to offer them, Mikasa peeking her head to check in, neither of them interrupting. Until hours pass by and they grow tired of recounting stories about Armin and Mikasa and Mom and everything they know. Until they all say a prayer and bid their goodnights. Until Eren closes his eyes and speaks inwardly, outwardly, to any soul that will hear.

“Thank you.”

This is home, after all.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for taking so long to update this. ya girl's been fucked by life these past few days (months, really). speaking of which, eren finally gets his favorite sex position here. BAHA! good for him.
> 
> also, i just remembered that an anon on tumblr asked me for some noy headcanons (the most preciouos thing y'all do btw) about how the gang would find out that eren and mikasa slept together. honestly it was so funny to think about because i think hitch and sasha would find out next time they see mikasa and be like "girl you are glowing!" and hitch doesn't stop teasing her about it. eren most definitely went to reiner's after their fight and bawled his eyes out. i'm sure he woke up to a text where reiner's like "you ok man?" and when eren responds 14 hrs later "yea im chillin" reiner's like "...................you got laid didn't you" 
> 
> LMAO ANYWAY
> 
> god, i can't believe this story is almost over. what will i do when it's done? i honestly have no idea. cross that bridge when we get there because this fic has helped me cope. i am still astonished that it's done the same to many of you.
> 
> as always, thank you for the love and support and kindness and patience.
> 
> see you next week,  
> nati


	35. And So I Set You Free

Their old bedroom is nearly exactly the same. Same old bed. Same old curtains. Same old little chip on the wall that Eren never got around to fixing all those years ago. It’s as if Grandpa Arlert left it all that way in case they would ever want to come back and reclaim what’s theirs.

It’s Armin’s room, the one that’s empty. 

Mikasa sinks onto the mattress and throws the covers over herself. She’s clad in one of Maria’s nightgowns, which proves to be too large for her, and yet too short. It’s funny, how the bodice is so big it leaves one of her shoulders barren, the dress falling all to one side, and yet it is not long enough to cover even her knees despite its size. It reminds her of when she’d wear Mama’s clothing as a child, playing grown-up. Perhaps not much has changed.

Maria’s tucking her in and smoothing the bed sheets over her chest. Mikasa giggles quietly.

“What?” the old woman smiles. “What’s so funny, dear?”

“Nothing,” Mikasa sighs. “You just remind me of my mother, is all.”

“Is she a grumpy old lady like me?”

“She would be. She died when I was young.”

Maria’s face falls. “Goodness,” she laments. “I’m very sorry. I will never understand why such horrible things happen to good people.”

Mikasa places her hand atop Maria’s, giving it a tiny squeeze. “It’s alright,” she says. “I’ve made peace with my past.”

“As we all should.”

“No use in living with remorse, right?”

“Right, dear.”

“Thank you for having us tonight. Dinner was lovely.”

Suddenly, Maria laughs. “You know, sweetie, you talk a lot.”

Despite herself, Mikasa’s smiling again. “Sorry.”

“No, no. Don’t be silly.” The mattress shifts, settling under Maria’s bottom as she sinks onto the bed by Mikasa’s side. Her eyes are full and wise, youthfully vibrant—like Grandpa Arlert’s, having never lost their light. “What I mean is,” she continues, “Sir Arlert always spoke of how reserved you are. But you talk a lot! I think that’s wonderful.”

Mikasa hums, her long hair spilled over the pale pillows. “I guess I’ve changed.”

“Hopefully for the better.”

“Hopefully.”

Maria cups her cheek, scrunching up her little nose. She’s just like Mama. Just as sassy and witty and warm. Just like everything Mikasa knows to be of home.

“Goodnight, dear,” the old woman croons. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Will you join us for breakfast?”

“Only if you have chocolate chip pancakes.”

Maria yelps out a laugh. “Only the chocolatiest pancakes for you.”

“That’s what I like to hear.”

Mikasa closes her eyes and listens as she leaves. The door creaks shut, and then, some minutes later, hushed conversations occur outside in the hallway. Then the door’s creaking open again, footsteps nearing until the mattress shifts with an added weight. It’s Eren.

Mikasa’s eyes shoot open.

“Hey.”

Eren jumps, a hand flying to his chest. “Jesus, Mik. You scared me.”

She smirks. “Thought I was sleeping, huh?”

“Yes, woman. Don’t frighten me like that.”

“Sorry.” Mikasa shifts to her side, staring at him. He looks so worn, yet still strong and handsome as ever. His cheeks and jaw are shadowed with a hint of stubble, his eyes rich with color although they seem sleepy and so very tired. Reaching out to touch him, fingertips brushing the back of his neck, she asks, “How was your talk with Gramps?”

Eren sighs deeply. “Good. Very good, actually. We talked about Ar and my…”

“Leukemia.”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“And it was… amazing. He doesn’t blame me for what happened to Armin.”

“Nobody does, Eren.”

“I know. It’s amazing.”

Mikasa sits upright, the nightgown dipping steeply down her chest and nearly exposing her breasts. She adjusts it, huffing, and Eren notices what she’s wearing, reaching out to pinch the fabric between his fingers.

He snorts. “What’s this?”

“It’s Maria’s.”

“My God.”

“You like it?”

Eren makes a face. “Not really.”

A gasp. “You don’t think it suits me?”

“You look like a saggy marshmallow.”

Mikasa laughs. “Rude!”

“God, you _do_ talk a lot.”

She shoves him away playfully, but that only makes him bounce back. “Shut up.”

“What was in those potatoes? I want quiet Mikasa back.”

“Shut up!”

“I’m joking, I’m joking.” Eren grins, his dimple indenting his cheek. “I like that you talk a lot when you’re happy.”

“I am happy.”

“Me too.”

Suddenly, Mikasa kneels on the bed and begins to undress herself. Eren stares, puzzled.

“What are you doing?” he asks her patiently.

“You said I’m a marshmallow—”

“—I said you _look_ like—”

“—so I’ll just be naked.”

“God, Miki.”

“What?” She’s bare now, placing her hands on her hips. It’s funny how Eren looks at her, with a mixture of amusement and want. She crawls her way up to where he’s sitting, her face mere centimeters away from his. So close, she whispers, “What?”

Eren smiles, running his fingers through her hair. “Nothing.”

And when his hand is at the back of her skull, he pushes her in for a kiss. It’s soft. Careful, even. But he knows the way she gets when she wants more, just by the way her breathing changes, so he pulls back, whispering, “Mikasa.”

“Hmm?”

“These walls are thin.”

“So?”

“Pretty sure Gramps and Maria aren’t deaf. Not yet, anyway.”

Her eyes widen. “Oh, no. Did you forget?”

“Forget what?”

Promptly, the girl hops off the bed and skitters over to flip a switch on the wall. The ceiling fan above them whirs to life, and it’s just as ancient as they remember, shaky and rickety with every rapid spiral of the blades. It genuinely sounds like it could fall off the ceiling and crash on top of them at any second. But it’s always sounded like that. 

“Tada,” Mikasa triumphs, holding her arms out and tipping up a foot. “There it is. Loud as hell.”

Eren laughs.

She bites her lip, holding back her own little snickers with her fringe over her eyes, all glorious and messy. Mikasa always shines like that when she’s really happy, and Eren can’t help but chuckle at her glow, receiving her in his arms once she swoops in to fall into him.

Her lips find his, a kiss that is delicate and honest. Until she sits on his lap and deepens it, guiding his hands across the planes of her body and giggling quietly when he shushes her after making a small noise. And as Eren’s palms rove over her skin, she ingrains the feel of him desiring her, thinks of how the future is eternally unknown. This may be their last night together for the rest of their lives, and Mikasa realizes with great regret that his days are truly numbered. 

Six years ago, she did the same thing. She kissed him like this, felt him like this, had him like this—in this very room. And she savored his essence, certain that she would never get to taste him again. Ironic, how history repeats itself. But yet, this time, it is so different. Her heart swells with want, not loss. With the presence of him.

Her hands tug at his shirt, and it is rolling over his head before he has time to breathe. She’s fervent, and Eren tries to match her but for once, he can’t catch up. He's so exhausted. Eventually, they become a slow vortex, a tangle of limbs and heated breaths, quiet pants against temples and cheeks and foreheads.

When they are finished, they lie on their backs, all former giggles long gone as a more somber air settles between them. Mikasa rolls onto her belly, the curve of her spine accentuated in the silver light coming in from the windows. She plays with his hair, brown locks that now fall past his shoulders.

“So serious,” she breathes.

Eren blinks. “I’m just thinking.”

“About?”

“Everything.”

She snorts. “That’s dangerous, Eren.”

He sighs, tracing the lines of her back with his knuckles. “I know what I want to do.”

“Tell me.”

“I’m going to help Maria take care of Gramps. He doesn’t have much time left. I want to help him, and help myself.” Eren’s staring at her back, not seeing the way Mikasa watches him. “I’m going to get treatment. I’m going to do everything to get better. I want to live.” He turns his head to look at her, and her expression is faint in the moonlight, imperceptible but gentle all the same. “As soon as we get back to the city, I’m going to get ready to come back here. This is my home. I have to make the best of what time I have left.”

“So you’re going to leave everything behind?” Mikasa asks him.

“Sure. It’s not difficult.” Eren turns his body so that his entire being faces her now. He whispers, running the backs of his knuckles down her cheek, “Come with me, Mik.”

She perks up. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. We could start over. You and me, here, with Gramps and Maria.”

Her expression grows wistful, but it precedes a sigh. “I would love nothing more.”

Eren moves her hair away from her face, and he sees how her eyes drop with the rest of her expression. He looks away, falling onto his back to stare up at the ceiling. 

“But you’re saying no,” he says.

Yet another sigh. “It’s complicated.”

“What is?”

“Everything, Eren. I still have…”

He looks at her. “Jean.”

“Yes,” Mikasa nods. “I’ve made a whole new life, and you are asking me to leave it all behind. Please understand why this is difficult.”

Eren swallows, pulling his hands away from her body—and it leaves him cold. “Yeah, well, knock yourself out marrying him then.”

“Eren, don’t.”

“It just makes no sense.”

“I don’t want to fight. Please.”

“Okay, fine. Let’s not fight. Let’s just talk about this calmly.” He is careful to keep his tone low. Although agitated, he sincerely wants to know: “Why do you want to go back to Jean?”

Mikasa shakes her head. “It isn’t about Jean at all.”

“Then what?”

“I want to make my own life,” she explains. “For myself. To live for myself. Do you understand that?”

Eren’s quiet.

“I’ve started so many things, things that need to be finished and that I have to take ownership for. I can’t just abandon all of it. I’m not you. I’m not free with nothing to lose. Do you understand, Eren?”

“I do,” he says after a pause. His eyes are back on the ceiling, but she cups a hand on his cheek, guiding his eyes back to her. He’s the one sighing now. “I want that for you too, Mik. Truly.”

“These past few months, I’ve danced again,” she says. “I’ve made friends. I’ve realized that there is so much out there, so much living I still have left to do, too. You know what you want to do with your life, but I don’t know what I want for mine yet, and I need to figure it out on my own.” Mikasa moves herself closer to him so that she eclipses his vision. She is all he sees, smells, hears. Flooding him, she tells him, “I would love to join you, Eren, but I can’t live for you anymore. And you shouldn’t live for me.”

He nods. “I understand.”

“Yeah?”

“I do, I do. I know what I want out of my life, and it wouldn’t be fair to ask you to revolve yours around me anymore.”

“Exactly.” After a bit, Mikasa snorts quietly. “Wow, Eren. I think this is the first time we disagree on something and you don’t argue with me.”

“Because you’re right,” he answers simply. “I shouldn’t fight that.” 

She whispers for him to look at her. And when he does, she’s not surprised by the way her insides seems to inhale, how every little piece of her recognizes all of his. The dense length of his eyelashes, the way the features of his face come together in a way that makes utter sense—he’s all she’s known and memorized since childhood. Eren Jaeger. The living, breathing map of her life.

And he says, “I can’t believe I have to let you go again.”

His hand is on her cheek, thumbing the scar she has there. Mikasa closes her eyes at the feel of him touching her before leaning in, body and soul, to kiss him.

“Not yet,” she says. “Not yet.”

**—o—**

It is late at night, an overstay from reluctance to depart. Maria and Gramps wipe at their eyes and bid their goodbyes, sniffling within the arms of a crying Mikasa.

Eren goes last. He thanks them and promises to be back, to which everyone nods and manages teary smiles.

“Thank you for everything,” Mikasa says, clasping Eren’s hand in her own. “We will see you again.”

“I sure hope so,” Gramps tells them. “Don’t be strangers, now.”

“It was such an immense pleasure to have you with us,” Maria smiles warmly. Eren wraps his arms around her and holds her as she weeps, breaking into tiny snorts when she gripes about how strong he is. 

Mikasa stares with silent admiration. Eren’s grown so much, changed so much. It fills her heart to see how different he’s become, how well he knows to say goodbye now when it used to always break him.

Pulling themselves free of one last embrace, Eren and Mikasa turn to go, leaving behind all the tears and the smells and the innards of this home they once called their own, where Armin lived and thrived. Where they all did. 

The warmth of their homecoming lingers even long after they’re gone, even after the house is a small dot in the distance and the car engine replaces the sounds of Gramps and Maria’s voices.

They drive by their old bench, and it’s still there. Still nestled in that little middle where Eren and Mikasa came together each morning to go to school, to come back home, to fall in love, to do it all over again. In that little spot, they spoke of so many things, lived through so many things. Carla dying, parents splitting, diagnosis after diagnosis and although the world never stopped changing around them, and their bodies merely grew and grew, the common denominator was always them together. Eren, Mikasa, and their little bench. Always there and always together. 

It’s not long before Eren falls asleep.

He dreams of the past. This time, of all the things that were easy and soft about it. Such a past does also exist, even though Eren is so good at forgetting that.

Hours later, city lights replace the stars. They pass on by, blurry streaks that paint their bodies and faces. Stargazing with Armin taught them both to find the sky in all places. So when Eren’s eyes flutter open after some time, he looks up. 

He finds a lone star, just one, glinting timidly amid an expanse of breaking gray. And that’s the thing about stars, he thinks. They’re always there—even when they’re veiled by clouds or anything else that tries to touch them. Stars are so fixed, unmoved by anything that happens under their eternal gaze. No matter what takes place down on earth, no matter how much war or chaos or turmoil and destruction ravages below them, they stay pulsing, glowing, a testament that no matter how dark the night, there is always light made to shine through.

They go through the process of returning the rented car, and walk the rest of the way back in silence. It is in the middle of the way back to Eren’s apartment that they stop, the very spot where they ran into each other all those months ago.

Mikasa is very still, watching as dawn breaks the sky, cracks of light intensifying through the clouds like secrets seeking to be declared. She closes her eyes and breathes in just how much has changed, how everything, all of this, is truly irreversible. It’s only forward from here, and perhaps every path she’s ever taken was never an error. Perhaps there is no such thing at all. Every deviation and misstep has been leading to the right place. Leading to this. To now. 

To Eren.

Here, in this spot, months ago, they met again.

Here, in this spot, it all changes today.

“Eren,” she says, and it hurts him to hear his name be uttered in such a way. Not too long ago, she pronounced the syllables to precede a hello. It is to say goodbye this time.

He pulls her into a tight embrace and presses her against his chest. She feels his every heartbeat, the quiet thrum of his existence, and she whispers, “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Mikasa.” Eren buries his nose into her hair and breathes her. She smells sweet, so eternally sweet, of all the brightness of his past and all the benevolence that is to come in his future. And he says, “I never want to let you go.”

“I will always be with you,” she replies. “I promise. Always.”

Eren closes his eyes. “I know, Miki.”

The girl hums, and he just holds her as she just holds him. They cry, weeping into the crevices of one another, and stand together like two stones carved into the dawn, unmoving. 

Mikasa lifts her head from his chest, and for the last time, she kisses him.

Their lips connect two separate worlds, and it holds the same reverence that is bestowed upon the altar, the same vows that are shared between the marriage of souls. Everything in her echoes her love for him—in its truest, fullest form. The form that knows, that recognizes that it is time to let him go.

Shedding herself from him, Mikasa brings a hand to his cheek. He burrows deeper into her touch, turning to kiss the palm of her hand. She smiles faintly and breathes once more that she loves him.

Eren parts his lips, but she is gone before he can answer.

He stares at her body as it grows smaller, as the sun overwhelms the sky and cradles the way she fades, little by little, until she’s swallowed by the corner of a building and Eren’s sure she’s gone. 

He does not move. 

He does not move until he is certain that she is never coming back again. With an inhale, he unearths all the heaviness within him, all the roots that have lived inside of him for so long, and he sets it all free with one strong, solid expulsion of breath. As preposterous as it is—as wildly, unimaginably preposterous as it is, all is well. All is well, he thinks. She is gone, but he is still living, still here, still sick and whole and still, no matter what, Eren. 

Letting go. 

For the first time in his life, Eren thinks he knows how to do that.

To meeting again, he dedicates this final moment before turning to go home. That term has taken so many shapes lately. Home. It’s been a girl, the one whose body is the shrine where he’s poured all of his worship, whose soul is the blueprint to everything he knows to have a heartbeat. It’s been a house, the one where a father figure lives and Armin’s existence still reverberates. It’s been this city, for so long—and he’s belonged in all of them.

Walking back, finally, Eren divorces himself from the essence of all that is, has been, and ever will be Mikasa Ackerman. But maybe goodbyes don’t actually exist. Maybe they merely empty spaces so that they may fill anew. 

Here, they met again.

Here, it all changes today. 

Be it now, over, under and again, what is ours always finds us. There is peace in knowing that.

**—o—**

Jiji jumps when the door creaks open, a small noise proclaiming her return. The whiteness of her old home is a stark contrast to the colors that have flooded her life as of late. And they bleed out.

Green.

Blue.

Gold. 

Fading from her life now.

“Jean,” she calls out, and it only takes a few seconds for him to appear. He looks so different, a shadow of stubble lading his cheeks, dark circles under his eyes and she knows she’s the cause of all of it.

“Mikasa,” he gasps. She asks him to take a seat on the sofa, where she goes to sit by his side. Without a word, she grabs Jean’s hand and turns it so that it’s facing upward. There are no scars on it, she sees. No signs of struggle or pain. 

Mikasa places her engagement ring upon the center of his palm, closing his fingers around it.

Jean understands.

“We should start from the beginning,” she says, tears welling in her eyes. With a hand to her chest, she tells him, “I am Mikasa Ackerman. I like chocolate and ballet.”

Jean’s scoffs out a small laugh. She smiles softly. 

“I was homeschooled until I was nine,” she continues, “and then I moved to my hometown, where I grew up with my family. My best friend was killed in a car crash when I was nineteen. I was pregnant once, and I lost the baby. So I moved away to start over, and some time later, I met a very kind, very gentle man.”

Tears spill from Jean’s eyes, and Mikasa feels her own fall free. Curling her fingers over where he holds her ring, she whispers, “I agreed to marry him. He taught me what it was to love again. But things changed, eventually. I hurt him. He never asked for that and he didn’t deserve it. I pretended to be something I’m not, so I’d like for him to know me. I’d like to get to know him again, too.”

Jean sighs, wiping a tear from Mikasa’s cheek with the pad of his thumb. “I’m Jean. Jean Kirschtein”

“Nice to meet you, Jean.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” he smiles, his gaze gentle on her face. He’s always looked at her like that. With love. With kindness. “I was born with a silver spoon,” he tells her. “My parents were so fucking rich they didn’t even know what to do with all that money.” 

Mikasa laughs, which makes Jean chuckle lightly. 

“And I uh… My life was pretty normal growing up, I guess. I lived in this city until I had to move for a work project. Then, I met this girl—this gorgeous, quiet girl—at the park one day. She was sitting on a bench all alone. She was reading a book. _Illusions._ She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, so imagine my surprise when she agreed to marry me.” He looks at her, and he says, “I hurt her too. I neglected her without meaning to. She didn’t deserve that, and now…”

Jean peers down at the engagement ring in his hand. He lets out a breath, hitched and shaky. Crying, he whispers, “Now, I think she’s asking me to let her go.”

Mikasa nods. “Only of the part of her you don’t really know.”

And there is nothing more to say. Sighing, Jean pulls her into his arms. Mikasa falls onto his chest, and she lets him hold her. She breathes in the scent of his shirt, she closes her eyes. And she knows that smell so well, has breathed it for years. She called it her life once, her new life once. And now it’s different. Now it isn’t anymore.

So what is?

As she cries against Jean’s chest, bunching the materialism of his clothes in her hands, images flash before her eyes. She is married. She is pregnant. She is happy. She has everything she’s wanted and it all exists in a world of peace. And she feels an immense shift within her, the compass arrow finally pointing North. And she wonders. And she asks.

Where will she go? 

What will she do? 

Who will she become now? 

The world feels so vast and so radiant. So full and new of all she thought had already had an ending. 

And she wonders. 

And she asks.

_What will I decide?_

  
  


**—o—**

All of his belongings are in boxes. It only took a couple of days to pack everything up. Reiner’s beefy arms and Ymir’s persistence to get everything done in one impossible, beer-tinged go really sped up the process for him. Tomorrow, they get the moving van. They didn’t let Eren even consider turning down their help and refusing to let them tag along.

One more day, and he says goodbye to this place forever. 

The hallways, the walls—the naps at Sasha’s place and the parties at Hitch’s. Levi’s scornful look but all the love that lived behind it. The music, the guitar sessions, the laughter and the noise. The first time Mikasa ever came over, how scared and frail she looked back then, how gorgeous and filled she looked when he left her. And all of his friends, the way they held on tight when he told them he was leaving, how they sobbed and complained and he had to promise all of them:

Always. 

_I will always be with you._

Just one more day.

One more day, and he lets go of this version of himself, this version he has known for so long to be Eren. But people are always doing that, letting go of who they are. Eren’s not sure he’s the same person he was even yesterday.

Time scrolls on by rather quickly, so that when he is collapsing on the ground of his now vacant apartment with a tired huff, it is nearly dusk. He has to go to Annie’s; he’s staying at her place tonight. But just five more minutes, he thinks. Just five more minutes of being, of still living here. That’s all he wants right now. It’s not too much to ask.

Just five more minutes.

Eren closes his eyes, and he sees Mom. She is smiling at him, telling him that he is doing well for himself. 

He sees Dad, how he knows that if he reaches out, he will find him. How even when his bags were packed and he’d walked away, he never really left him. 

He sees Gramps, and tries to fathom what living with him will be like. But he can’t really do it. We can’t really gauge all the facets of our future until it’s sitting in the now. 

He sees Armin, how he owes so much of who he is to him. Growing up under his shadow was terrifying and astounding, for he left so much for Eren to fill, so great was his foundation. And he hopes, and part of him knows, that he is proud of him.

Lastly, he sees Mikasa, and he’s certain that she’s alright. No matter where she is, no matter what she’s doing. She’ll always be alright.

Just one more minute. 

Another. 

And Eren knows it’s time to go. So as time dribbles from his fingers, he brings himself to say:

Thank you.

To Armin. To Mom. To Mikasa. To everyone.

_Thank you._

He’s spent so long blaming himself for all of it—all of the sickness and the death that got them all but he knows now that there is nothing to atone for, for there is no wrongdoing, none of it was Eren’s fault. He can let them go, let it all go, for there is no redemption needed anymore. 

This whole forgiveness thing, it’s new to him. But Eren figures he has enough time left to practice.

When his eyes open again, he searches his surroundings, but there’s nothing more to find. This little corner of the world has given him all it came to give. 

He’s about to get up when he hears a sudden knock at his door. Startled, Eren rises to his feet. Hitch and Sasha weren’t supposed to be home until tomorrow. He even contemplates not answering, but another knock comes, stronger this time. 

Tentatively, he walks towards the door and rings his fingers around the doorknob. He’s been here before, but he can’t recall exactly when or how or what were the circumstances. Then, with a breath, he turns the knob in his hand and pulls the door open.

A gasp.

Breathless, Eren stares. And she is there, what he questions to be a figment of his imagination—with short hair that kisses the length of her neck and a smile he can recognize even in the deepest darkness. He parts his lips to call her name but he realizes that she is unknown to him. He cannot name her, not this being, not this person. He thinks to introduce himself, to ask who she is. But he is unable to conjure words, for they are not possible, they are not needed.

Not anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not ready i'm not ready i'm not ready to let this story go. i can't fucking believe it. i never thought i would get this attached to the world of noy the second time around. but it truly, truly has become a part of me.
> 
> after this, we go into the epilogue. i can't believe this is technically the last chapter. oof. i will save the gush and the tears for next week. i'm already working on a letter for all of you.
> 
> i say this all the time but thank you so much. for the love and support and your very precious questions on tumblr and curiouscat. i honestly love the way so many of you wonder and care about every tiny detail of this story, and all of you who carry it so close that you remember even its smallest phrases. it means so very much.
> 
> one more week, and we say goodbye to noy forever. again, i will spare you the gush until the last chapter, but there are already tears in my eyes.
> 
> see you next week,  
> nati


End file.
